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MEMOIRS 

OF 

MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 


MEMOIRS 


OF 


Monsieur  Claude 

CHIEF  OF  POLICE 
UNDER  THE    SECOND    EMPIRE 

Translated  by  Katharine   Prescott  Wormeley 


•>    '    '  • 


LonHon 
ARCHIBALD   CONSTABLE  &   COMPANY,  Ltd. 

BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 
1908 


^v 
^ 


COPYRIGHT   1907   BY  HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESKRVSD 


NOTE 


THESE  Memoirs  have  been  condensed  in  the  present 
edition.  Many  parts  of  them  are  long  out  of  date  ;  such, 
for  instance,  as  the  chapters  on  police  regulations  and  the 
prisons  of  Paris  ;  while  the  police  reports  and  proces-ver- 
baux  are  as  dull  reading  as  the  daily  records  of  the  Old 
Bailey. 

But  the  historical  parts,  the  underside  of  well-known 
events  and  persons  during  the  reign  of  Louis-Philippe  and 
the  Second  Empire,  are  valuable,  curious,  and  very  interest- 
ing. The  book  was  published  in  1881,  and  the  London 
Spectator,  when  reviewing  it  in^the  summer  of  that  year, 
said  that  it  was  perfectly  trustworthy,  and  that  its  state- 
ments had  not  been  refuted. 

These  Memoirs  are  in  ten  volumes.  The  present  volume 
condenses  -jive,  bringing  the  story  down  to  the  end  of  the 
Empire.  The  remaining  volumes  relate  to  the  siege  of 
Paris  and  the  Commune.  M,  Claude  resigned  his  post  in 
1876. 

K.  P.  W, 


252317 


CONTENTS 


I.  My  Youth  and  my  Vocation  i 

II.  Secret  Societies  and  the  Police  under 

Louis-Philippe  io 

iii.  how  i  became  acquainted  with  my  future 

Master  31 

IV.  The  End  OF  A  Reign  AND  ITS  Consequences  44 

V.  The  Coup  d^Etat  and  my  Victims  62 

VI.  The  Police  under  the  Empire  79 

VII.    How  I  PROTECTED  THE  INTERESTS  OF  A  GrEAT 

Lady  89 

VIII.  The  Bombs  of  Orsini  103 

IX.  Beranger — His  Funeral  124 

X.  JuD,  THE  Mysterious  Assassin  of  a  Judge 

OF  THE  Imperial  Court  133 

XL  Gamblers  and  Gambling-Houses  153 

XII.  Thieves  and  Forgers  162 

XIII.  The  Diamonds  of  the  Duke  of  Bruns- 
wick 173 


CONTENTS 

XIV.  Another  Interview  with  M.  Thiers  184 

XV.  Journalism  under  the  Empire  195 

XVI.  The  First  Thunderclap — Tropmann  210 

XVII.  The  Second  Thunderclap  — Victor  Noir  242 

XVIII.  The  War  258 

XIX.  After  Defeat — The  Political  Ghosts  279 

XX.  Installation    of  the  Government  of 

September  4  303 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Monsieur  Claude  Frontispiece 

comte  de  morny  66 

Joseph  Mazzini  ii8 

Pierre  Jean  de  Beranger  128 

Leroy  de  Saint- Arnaud  150 

Louis  Adolphe  Thiers  186 

Alexandre  Dumas  192 

Emile  Ollivier  206 

Henri  Rochefort  248 

Napoleon  III  258 

The  Prince  Imperial  264 

Empress  Eugenie  304 


MEMOIRS 

CHAPTER  I 

MY  YOUTH  AND  MY  VOCATION 


I  WAS  born  at  Toul  (Meurthe),  on  the  17th  of 
October,  1807,  of  an  honourable  family,  though 
limited  in  means.  I  am  proud  of  my  town,  which 
resisted  the  Prussian  invasion.  I  am  glad  to  belong  to 
a  population  which  carried  its  respect  for  duty  up  to 
heroism,  and  its  contempt  of  danger  to  the  very  limit  of 
courage.  I  may  add  that  I  take  pleasure  in  attributing 
those  gifts,  if  I  have  shown  them  in  my  long  and  diffi- 
cult career,  to  my  brave  co-citizens,  whose  glorious  his- 
tory is  written  on  their  ramparts. 

The  limited  means  of  my  family  obliged  me  to  leave 
my  province  early  in  life,  to  make  for  myself  an  inde- 
pendent existence.  Anxious  to  remain  as  short  a  time 
as  possible  at  the  cost  of  my  parents,  who  had  given 
me  a  good  and  careful  education,  I  left  Toul  when  nine- 
teen years  of  age  and  went  to  Paris. 

In  this  I  was  less  guided  by  ambition  than  by  the 
wish  to  make  myself  a  lucrative  career ;  which,  in  those 
days,  the  provinces  could  not  offer  to  a  young  man  like 
me,  whose  education  had  been  above  his  situation.  I 
brought  with  me  a  recommendation  to  a  friend  of  my 
family,  M.  de  L ,  a  man  of  independent  means  and 


y--:;'f^.^-::..;/A -MEMOIRS    OF 

social  position  in  Paris.  By  him  I  was  at  once  placed 
in  the  office  of  an  attorney. 

I  was  not  precisely  on  the  road  to  fortune ;  sitting 
from  morning  till  night  at  a  desk,  copying  deeds,  veri- 
fying records,  unless  I  were  carrying  files  of  papers  to 
and  fro  between  the  attorney's  office  in  the  Palais  de 
Justice  and  its  clients  —  a  gutter-jumping  employment 
which  was  not  to  my  taste.  With  an  inquiring  mind, 
very  fond  of  the  exciting  and  the  unexpected,  under  an 
external  appearance  of  easy  good-nature,  I  hated  this 
life  of  a  squirrel's  whirligig,  which  stretched  my  legs 
and  paralysed  my  imagination. 

Nevertheless,  I  remained  three  years  a  lawyer's  clerk. 
From  gutter-jumper  I  rose  to  the  rank  of  second  clerk ; 
and  there  I  might  have  remained  indefinitely  if  certain 
aptitudes  of  mine  had  not  shown  themselves  in  time  to 
assign  me  another  mission.  Chance  put  me  in  the  way 
to  find  my  true  vocation,  and  to  prove  to  my  comrades 
that  nature  had  endowed  me  with  a  faculty  of  observation 
which  would  make  me,  in  time,  a  skilful  policeman. 

This  chance,  which  decided  my  vocation,  I  owe  to  a 
man  afterwards  very  celebrated  in  the  annals  of  crime. 
It  happened  in  1829,  of  a  Saturday.  I  had  been  invited, 
with  a  score  of  other  clerks  from  the  offices  of  notaries 
and  attorneys,  to  a  Pantagruelian  dinner,  given  by  a 
future  neophyte.  This  young  man,  I  was  told,  was  the 
son  of  a  rich  merchant  in  the  provinces.  After  spend- 
ing in  Paris  all  the  money  he  could  get  from  his  father, 
he  was  now  obliged  to  employ  his  brilliant  faculties  in 
some  profession.  Being  very  intimate  with  certain  law- 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  3 

yer's  clerks,  he  was  enabled  by  them  to  enter  their 
patron's  office,  as  he  had  already  given  some  time  in 
the  provinces  to  the  study  of  law.  By  way  of  gratitude, 
he  was  now  to  spend  his  last  francs  in  a  farewell  feast  to 
his  turbulent  youth,  given  to  his  friends  in  the  notary's 
office  which  he  was  about  to  enter.  A  few  attorney's 
clerks  were  added  to  the  number  of  his  guests,  among 
whom  I  had  the  honour  of  admission. 

I  had  not,  hitherto,  known  my  host,  whom  his  friends, 
out  of  respect,  they  said,  for  his  family  during  the  period 
of  his  dissipated  life,  called  George.  I  was  all  the  more 
curious  to  know  him  because  my  friends  had  repre- 
sented him  to  me  as  a  hero. 

"  If  he  does  not,  as  yet,"  they  added,  "  make  known 
his  family  name,  it  is  less  because  he  dreads  paternal 
anger  at  his  peccadilloes  —  very  excusable  at  his  age 
—  than  because  he  fears  the  police.  They  have  had  their 
eyes  on  him  ever  since  he  killed  his  adversary,  a  traitor 
to  France,  in  a  duel,  and  thus  proclaimed,  in  a  threat- 
ening way  for  the  government,  his  opinions  as  a  Car- 
bonaro." 

France  was  just  then  on  the  eve  of  Charles  X's  ordon- 
nances,  and  the  Opposition  were  making  demigods  of 
the  Carbonari.  The  French  Bar  was  not  backward  in 
exhibiting  its  preferences  for  the  Opposition,  which 
promised  to  young  lawyers  a  far  more  brilliant  career 
than  that  of  mere  defenders  of  the  widow  and  orphan. 

In  1829  politics  were  everywhere;  even  the  snuff- 
boxes and  the  hats  were  adorned  with  portraits  of 
Lafitte,  Benjamin  Constant,  Dupont  de  I'Eure,  and 


4  MEMOIRS   OF 

Lafayette.  In  every  cafe  and  every  restaurant  the  cus- 
tomers were  assorted  according  to  their  ways  of  think- 
ing ;  and  each  was  on  its  guard  against  its  adversaries. 
It  goes  without  saying  that  the  clerks  of  notaries  and 
attorneys,  the  least  well  paid  and  well  treated  of  the 
judicial  hierarchy,  were  all,  to  a  man,  in  the  ranks  of 
the  Opposition. 

As  for  me,  an  ardent  apostle  of  liberty,  I  considered 
it  a  great  privilege  to  be  invited  to  meet  this  hero,  this 
martyr  to  his  opinions.  The  duel  raised  him  to  a  pin- 
nacle in  my  young  imagination.  I  was  prepared  to  fol- 
low him  with  enthusiasm  even  before  I  saw  him. 

The  dinner  was  given  at  the  Veau  qui  fete  [Sucking 
Calf],  a  restaurant  then  in  vogue.  The  giver  of  the 
feast  was  a  young  man  about  twenty-five  years  of  age ; 
fair,  graceful,  elegant,  with  a  smiling  face  set  off  by  a 
silky  moustache,  without  which  he  might  have  passed 
for  a  woman  in  disguise,  or  a  schoolboy.  He  was  ex- 
cessively thin,  but  the  frail  body,  so  delicate  in  appear- 
ance, covered  a  robust  constitution,  judging  by  the 
suppleness  of  his  limbs,  and  the  strong  play  of  his 
muscles.  A  man  who  sat  beside  him,  and  appeared  to 
be  his  chosen  comrade,  was,  on  the  contrary,  a  stout 
fellow,  whose  burly  figure  made  the  slender  propor- 
tions of  his  friend  the  more  noticeable ;  nevertheless, 
this  stoutness  showed  more  weakness  than  strength, 
a  constitution  ravaged  by  excesses,  and  threatened 
with  plethora.  He  seemed  the  type  of  an  army  ofiicer 
degraded  to  the  ranks.  His  name  was  Begand,  and, 
like  his  friend  George,  he  came  from  Lyons. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  5 

As  the  dinner  went  on,  passing  through  the  various 
discordant  phases  of  jollity,  I  watched  with  more  and 
more  curiosity  the  two  chief  leaders  of  the  feast.  Law- 
yers' clerks  are,  as  a  rule,  very  easily  excited  by  the 
blood  of  the  vine.  I  noticed  that  George,  from  the  mo- 
ment when  his  guests  began  to  sway,  kept  perfect  pos- 
session of  himself,  in  spite  of  the  bottles  before  him. 
Yet  he  drank,  and  drank  steadily.  It  is  true,  however, 
that  he  scarcely  touched  the  dishes  as  they  were  passed 
to  him.  His  comrade,  on  the  contrary,  ate  enormously, 
and  drank  all  the  more  to  stimulate  his  gluttony. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  dinner,  I  observed  that  the 
more  the  face  of  Begand  flushed,  the  more  that  of 
George  turned  livid.  I  then  perceived  that  his  gentle, 
almond-shaped  eyes,  the  pupils  of  which  had  hitherto 
been  bathed  in  a  sort  of  magnetic  fluid,  were  now  shining 
with  the  brilliancy  of  steel.  His  brows  were  knit  and 
lowered  in  a  threatening  manner.  His  lips  had  a  sav- 
age grin;  and  the  young  man  who,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  meal,  wore  the  head  of  an  angel,  at  its  close  had 
the  face  of  a  hyena. 

A  strange  thing  now  happened  to  me.  As  the  man 
became  transformed,  or  rather,  as  the  mask  fell  from 
him,  I  became  conscious  that  I  myself  was  no  longer 
the  same.  An  evil  influence  acted  upon  me.  This  man, 
who  had  been  depicted  to  me  as  a  hero,  I  now  saw  for 
what  he  was  —  a  criminal.  The  odour  of  blood  that  ex- 
haled from  all  his  pores  intoxicated  me  far  more  than 
the  wine  that  I  had  drunk.  I  felt  myself  stirred  by  an 
instinct  against  that  malefic  nature,  as  a  shepherd's  dog 


6  MEMOIRS   OF 

smells  the  wolf  that  is  roaming  round  the  flock.  These 
magnetic  impressions,  these  luminous  perceptions,  have, 
since  then,  often  come  to  me  at  the  sight  or  the  contact 
of  an  evildoer;  in  fact,  without  depending  upon  them, 
they  have  been  a  great  help  to  me  in  my  delicate 
and  difficult  investigations.  I  admit  that  on  this  occa- 
sion these  impressions,  which  I  felt  for  the  first  time, 
bewildered  me ;  and,  not  understanding  the  instinctive 
horror  I  felt  for  this  George,  whom  my  friends  thought 
a  demigod,  I  was  angry  with  myself  for  my  assumptions. 

In  order  to  get  rid  of  this  mirage  in  my  mind,  which 
might  be,  after  all,  a  veil  of  intoxication,  I  listened  at- 
tentively to  what  he  was  saying.  Without  being,  accord- 
ing to  the  consecrated  word  of  that  day,  as  emu  as  his 
guests,  he  was  certainly  excited  by  the  champagne,  and 
I  soon  saw  that  he  was  taking  delight  in  gaining,  by 
his  cynical  remarks,  the  admiration  of  those  around 
him.  I  also  saw  that  the  fat  Begand,  who  sat  beside 
him,  was  claqueur  to  this  orator,  who  posed  as  a  wit. 

At  that  period  everything  was  discussed  and  argued 
—  religion,  social  matters,  the  family.  Young  men, 
who  personally  had  no  knowledge  of  the  past  miseries 
of  the  country,  were  amazed  that  France  should  have 
reverted  to  her  monarchical  traditions.  A  toast  was 
drunk  to  the  "  Return  of  Liberty,"  to  which  George 
responded  as  follows : 

"  Gentlemen,  I  drink  to  my  former  companions  in 
pleasure ;  to  my  new  associates  in  work ;  all  of  them 
victims,  like  myself,  of  the  inequality  of  social  condi- 
tions.  Entering,  as  I  now  do,  the  pale  of  the  bourgeois 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  7 

magistracy,  —  as  narrow-minded  and  as  stupid  as  all  the 
other  castes,  —  I  drink  to  the  future  that  will  avenge 
us  —  us,  the  pariahs  of  civilization !  As  for  me,  I  have 
struggled,  I  am  vanquished !  One  consolation  is  mine. 
I  have  not  surrendered  without  having  fought  valiantly ! " 

"  True !  true !  "  cried  the  fat  Begand.  "  We  know 
you,  George!  You  are  stalwart!  You  have  proved 
your  metal!  We  all  remember  your  duel  with  the 
nephew  of  Benjamin  Constant ! " 

At  that  name  I  shuddered.  My  singular  impressions 
were  confirmed.  Until  then,  my  friends,  when  lauding 
their  future  neophyte,  had  not  named  his  adversary. 
But  all  the  particulars  of  the  duel  with  Benjamin  Con- 
stant's nephew  were  known  to  me.  He,  being  the  in- 
sulted party,  fired  first,  and  fired  wide  of  his  adversary. 
The  latter  took  his  time,  aimed  deliberately,  and  shot 
young  Constant  dead,  through  the  right  breast.  This 
duel,  considered  by  the  moderate  liberals  a  murder, 
was  called  by  the  ultra-radicals  a  just  vengeance.  When 
I  saw  my  comrades  acclaiming  a  man  who  was  nothing 
less  than  a  murderer,  I  looked  about  me  to  escape  an 
orgy  that  filled  me  with  disgust.  At  this  moment  the 
man  himself  broke  up  the  feast.  Ordering  their  glasses 
filled  for  the  last  time,  he  rose  and  said : 

"  My  friends,  now  that  I  quit  the  world  of  idlers  and 
enter  with  you  the  class  of  earners,  I  shall  no  longer 
have  the  silly  vanity  to  conceal  my  patronymic.  My 
name  is  Lacenaire." 

That  name,  which  was  not  yet  blasted,  but  which 
was  destined  to  inspire  the  coming  generation  with 


8  MEMOIRS  OF 

legitimate  horror,  sounded  in  my  ears  like  a  funeral 
knell.  On  leaving  the  restaurant  of  the  Veau  qui  tete, 
I  felt  as  if  some  enormous  weight  were  lifted  off  me. 
My  companions  reproached  me  for  not  showing  suffi- 
cient enthusiasm  at  the  manner  with  which  this  charm- 
ing fellow  had  buried,  with  such  perfect  grace,  his  life 
of  a  man  of  pleasure. 

"  Friends,"  I  said,  carried  away  by  my  physiological 
impressions,  "  this  Lacenaire,  in  spite  of  his  smiling 
face  and  his  loquacity,  —  more  cynical  than  witty,  — 
shows  nothing  good  to  me.  Behind  the  mask  of  a  gen- 
tle, affectionate  man  he  has  the  face  of  a  wild  beast. 
My  eyes  have  seen  him  such  as  he  is  —  an  enemy  to 
society.  His  features  are  handsome,  I  admit ;  their  ex- 
pression is  horrible.  If  his  head  is  deceptive,  his  hand, 
which  I  have  closely  examined,  is  not.  That  hand, 
with  its  thin,  flat  fingers,  enlarged  at  their  extremities 
like  the  heads  of  young  reptiles,  exhibits  to  me  the 
creeping  cruelty  of  the  individual.  I  tell  you  that  that 
man  will  not  enter  your  notary's  office  next  Monday. 
And  I  '11  tell  you  more  —  before  long  you  will  hear 
much  about  him.     He  has  killed,  and  he  will  kill." 

At  these  words,  which  I  regretted  as  soon  as  I  had 
said  them,  my  comrades  declared  I  was  crazy ;  they 
laughed  at  me.  But  one,  the  head  clerk  in  the  notary's 
office,  was  very  angry,  and  called  me  a  calumniator. 

Two  days  later  they  laughed  no  longer.  Lacenaire 
did  not  enter  the  notary's  office ;  and  on  Tuesday  morn- 
ing the  safe  was  found  to  have  been  partly  broken  open 
during  the  night.     The  thieves,  alarmed  probably  by 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  9 

some  unexpected  noise,  had  left  the  office  without  se- 
curing the  very  considerable  property  contained  in  the 
safe.  Suspicion  naturally  fell  on  the  young  man  who 
had  so  won  the  confidence  of  the  head  clerk  that  the 
latter  recommended  him  for  a  position  in  the  office, 
which  he  had  frequently  visited  while  the  matter  was 
being  negotiated. 

A  few  months  later,  Lacenaire,  before  becoming  the 
odious  assassin  of  the  rue  Montorgueil,  was  arrested 
for  theft  at  the  Cafe  de  la  Bourse.  The  news  of  this 
robbery,  committed  by  the  brilliant  amphitryon  of  the 
Veau  qui  fete,  caused  a  certain  excitement  in  the  legal 
world.  The  head  clerk  who  had  called  me  a  calumni- 
ator never  ceased  to  extol  my  perspicacity,  which  he 
declared  was  witchcraft.  He  told  the  story  on  all  sides 
until  it  reached  the  ears  of  the  head  clerk  of  the  Crim- 
inal Court  of  the  Tribunal  of  the  Seine.  That  official, 
perceiving  that  I  might  become  a  very  precious  employe 
in  his  department,  made  me  proposals  which  I  accepted. 
Little  did  I  think  that  my  instinctive  perceptions  at  the 
Veau  qui  tete  were  to  open  to  me  the  doors  of  the  Pre- 
fecture. I  now  entered  them  as  a  humble  clerk ;  I  was 
on  my  true  ground ;  and  I  owed  it  to  Lacenaire,  thief, 
forger,  and  murderer ! 


CHAPTER  II 

SECRET  SOCIETIES  AND  THE  POLICE 

UNDER  THE  REIGN  OF 

LOUIS-PHILIPPE 


AFTER  the  revolution  of  1830,  I  rose  from  the 
position  of  recording  clerk  to  that  of  deputy  clerk 
of  the  Court  of  the  Seine.  There  I  performed  the 
functions,  without  having  the  title,  of  clerk  of  the  crim- 
inal and  detective  police  courts  \_grejffier  (Tinstruction 
criminelle\ .  I  owed  this  rise  partly  to  my  zeal  and  my  nat- 
ural fitness  for  the  work,  and  partly  to  political  events. 

At  this  epoch,  constitutional  monarchy,  which,  in  the 
words  of  a  celebrated  personage,  was  the  "  best  of  repub- 
lics," needed  energetic  and  judicious  men  to  restrain, 
in  the  interests  of  a  power  seeking  peace,  impatient 
minds  from  forcing  the  realization  of  the  programme 
of  the  Charter.  In  spite  of  the  easy,  good-natured  dis- 
position of  the  Citizen-King,  Louis-Philippe,  he  was  ex- 
posed, from  the  moment  he  mounted  the  throne,  to  the 
rancours  of  all  parties  which  did  not  even  recoil  before 
the  horrors  of  civil  war.  To  protect  himself,  His  Maj- 
esty summoned  around  him  the  men  who  were  most 
interested  in  maintaining  the  privileges  which  the  re- 
volution of  July  had  sought  to  suppress.  I,  myself,  was 
under  a  magistrate  who  continued  to  perform  the  same 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  ii 

part  he  had  formerly  played  under  the  "  monarchy  of 
divine  right."  The  police  service  was  strengthened,  both 
at  the  Prefecture  and  at  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior, 
by  the  vigilant  care  of  Casimir  Perier  [President  of  the 
Council  of  Ministers].  The  cabinet  noir,  suppressed  for 
a  time  in  1830,  was  re-established  by  General  Sebas- 
tiani,  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs. 

The  revolutionary  movements  which  broke  out  in  all 
the  countries  of  Europe,  starting  from  Paris  and  its 
secret  societies  (in  which  Republicans,  Bonapartists,  and 
Legitimists  were  plotting  in  their  several  ways),  necessi- 
tated the  creation  of  a  new  staff  for  the  cabinet  noir, 
the  functions  of  which  did  not  cease  until  the  overthrow 
of  Louis-Philippe  in  1848. 

In  this  connection,  I  must  tell  of  a  celebrated  man, 
Raspail  —  Fran9ois  Vincent  Raspail  —  President  of  the 
Society  of  the  Amis  du  Peuple  [Friends  of  the  People]. 
Citizen  Raspail,  chemist,  vegetable  physiologist,  and 
artilleryman,  had  played  a  very  important  part  among 
the  adversaries  of  Charles  X's  "ordinances."  After 
that  he  allowed  himself  to  be  forgotten  by  the  cama- 
rilla in  the  Laffitte  salons,  only,  however,  to  reappear 
with  vigour  as  a  journalist,  notably  in  the  Tribune,  and 
in  political  letters  which  he  fulminated  against  the 
new  government.  Everybody  read,  eagerly,  his  articles 
against  his  late  friends  and  associates  who,  in  one  night, 
had  wriggled  into  a  "court-dress."  The  cabinet  noir 
was  crammed  with  his  letters  against  the  King,  who, 
he  said,  "  was  none  of  his  choosing." 

The  Citizen  King,  who  sought  for  partisans,  not  for 


12  MEMOIRS   OF 

adversaries,  became  much  alarmed  by  Raspail's  letters, 
copies  of  which  rained  upon  him  daily  from  the  cabinet 
noir,  and  he  said  to  Montalivet,  then  Minister  of  the 
Interior : 

"  Good  God !  what  does  the  man  want  ? " 

"  Sire,"  replied  the  Minister,  "  probably,  like  all  the 
other  heroes  of  July,  he  wants  the  cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour." 

"  Then  give  it  to  him,"  cried  the  King,  "  and  let  me 
have  peace ! " 

Nothing  further  was  said  about  Raspail  between  the 
King  and  his  Minister,  but  the  latter  did  not  allow 
those  august  words  to  drop.  On  the  morrow  Raspail, 
Friend  of  the  People,  democratic  artilleryman,  proprie- 
tor of  the  Tribune^  head  of  a  secret  society,  received  a 
huge  official  document.  Supposing  it  to  be  a  summons 
or  an  injunction,  he  threw  it  on  his  desk  and  began  to 
think  of  preparing  for  incarceration.  But  when,  after 
a  time,  he  opened  the  missive,  words  could  not  express 
the  amazement  with  which  he  read  as  follows : 

Monsieur,  —  I  have  the  honour  to  announce  to  you 
that,  by  ordinance  under  date  March  13, 183 1,  the  King, 
at  my  suggestion,  has  appointed  you  Chevalier  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour.  The  Grand  Chancellor  of  the  Order 
will  at  once  send  you  a  duplicate  of  this  announcement 
of  your  appointment. 

(Signed)  Montalivet. 

Open-mouthed,  his  eyes  bulging  from  their  sockets, 
Raspail  turned  and  re-turned  this  letter,  to  see  if  the 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  13 

date  were  not  April  i  instead  of  March  13.  The  Re- 
publican, expecting  fetters,  received  the  cross  of  hon- 
our! He  immediately  wrote  a  reply  to  the  Minister, 
which  did  not  need  to  go  through  the  cabinet  noir,  for 
he  took  care  to  send  it  simultaneously  to  all  the  news- 
papers of  the  Opposition.  In  it  the  President  of  the 
"  Friends  of  the  People  "  said,  among  other  amiabil- 
ities, that  the  Government,  "despairing  of  winning  a 
citizen  through  his  conscience,  took  him  by  the  button- 
hole." 

But  between  the  reception  of  the  official  letter  and 
its  answer  a  ministerial  crisis  had  occured,  and  Casimir 
Perier  succeeded  Montalivet.  When  the  public  refusal 
of  the  Friend  of  the  People  appeared,  Casimir  Perier 
exclaimed,  with  his  natural  stiffness  and  obstinacy : 

"  Very  good :  let  Raspail  choose  —  the  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour  or  imprisonment  in  a  dungeon." 

Three  days  later  the  official  announcement  of  his 
appointment  appeared  in  the  Moniteur,  Furious,  Ras- 
pail went  to  the  office  of  the  Moniteur  to  insist  on  the 
insertion  of  his  refusal.  The  editor  told  him,  suavely, 
that  his  paper  could  not  thus  insult  the  noble  institu- 
tion of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

He  had  scarcely  returned  to  his  own  office  before  he 
received  a  courteous  letter  from  the  Prefect  of  the 
Seine,  saying  that  he  "  would  have  the  honour  of  re- 
ceiving Monsieur  Raspail  as  Chevalier  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour  on  the  following  Friday,  at  midday." 

This  was  dreadful :  surely  this  excess  of  official  gra- 
ciousness  was  degenerating  into  sarcasm. 


14  MEMOIRS   OF 

He  was  on  his  way  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville  to  inform 
the  Prefect  in  person  that  he  would  not  be  thus  re- 
ceived, when  he  was  met  by  a  congratulatory  deputa- 
tion of  the  dames  de  la  halle  [market-women],  who  flung 
themselves  and  a  huge  bouquet  into  the  arms  of  the 
new  Knight  of  Honour.  But  even  this  was  not  the 
worst ;  he  was  destined  to  drink  that  dreadful  cup  to 
the  dregs !  He,  who  saw  Jesuits  everywhere,  and  de- 
spised priests  as  much  as  he  did  the  Legion  of  Honour, 
received  a  charming  letter  from  Bishop  Gringoire,  Com- 
mander of  the  Order,  claiming  priority  in  the  honour- 
able appointment,  on  which  he  congratulated  him.  A 
bishop  congratulating  Raspail!  Surely  this  was  the 
acme  of  sarcasm  —  it  was  worse  than  imprisonment ! 

But  Casimir  Perier  was  not  the  man,  any  more  than 
Raspail,  to  give  way.  "  Cross  or  prison,"  said  the  Min- 
ister. If  the  chemist  would  not  take  the  cross,  the 
artilleryman  should  be  punished.  A  week  later  Raspail 
was  summoned  before  the  examining  judge  at  the  Pre- 
fecture to  explain  why  he  had  refused  to  serve  in  the 
artillery  since  General  Loban  had  ordered  him  to  patrol 
the  faubourgs  and  prevent  the  assembling  of  mobs; 
and  why  he  had  issued  incendiary  writings  against  the 
new  social  order. 

It  was  now,  at  the  beginning  of  my  career  as  clerk 
of  the  court,  that  I  first  knew  Raspail.  When  I  saw 
him  enter  the  courtroom  to  undergo  examination,  I  was 
struck  by  the  aspect  of  this  vigorous  southerner,  in 
whom  a  crafty  shrewdness  vied  with  ferocious  energy. 
A  clerk  of  the  court  is  not  a  mere  scrivener,  not  a 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  15 

record-book,  nor  an  automaton  whose  mechanism  the 
judge  sets  going;  he  is,  before  all  else,  an  observer.  I 
soon  saw  in  the  accused  and  in  the  judge  two  athletes ; 
the  former  sitting  as  haughtily  on  his  bench  as  the 
latter  in  his  armchair. 

Though  they  were  placed  at  two  ends  of  the  social 
ladder,  the  first  seemed  to  me  very  capable  of  tipping 
that  ladder  over  and  of  changing  abruptly  the  position 
of  the  other.  It  was  a  war  of  words  between  the  two 
men,  in  which  the  wily  frankness  of  the  accused  fought 
the  apparent  bonhomie  of  the  judge.  I  admired  the 
vigorous  language,  wholly  without  artifice,  of  Raspail, 
while  the  judge  was  doing  his  best  to  conceal  his 
thoughts.  Raspail  avoided  all  traps  by  jumping  over 
them.  Instead  of  hiding  his  power  and  his  actions,  he 
exaggerated  them ;  and  I,  who  watched  the  two  men, 
thought  there  was  as  much  shrewdness  and  calculation 
in  the  mind  of  the  accused  as  in  that  of  the  judge. 

Each  started  from  an  opposite  point  of  view  to  reach 
a  different  end.  The  magistrate  endeavoured  not  to 
exasperate  a  man  who  was  dangerous  to  the  Govern- 
ment; the  other  was  bent  on  proving  to  the  defender  of 
law  and  order  that  he  was  more  to  be  feared  than  they 
thought  him.  Both  were  before  an  altar  that  neither 
believed  in  —  that  of  an  hermaphrodite  monarchy; 
which  the  judge  would  fain  have  seen  legitimist;  and 
Raspail  regarded  as  a  mere  step  to  his  republic. 

That  was  the  opinion  I  formed  while  performing  my 
duty  as  clerk,  turning  my  eyes  from  one  to  the  other 
as  they  spoke,  and  writing  down  their  words. 


i6  MEMOIRS   OF 

When  the  examination  was  over  —  in  which  Raspail 
declared  his  full  responsibility  for  the  articles  in  the 
Tribune,  and  scornfully  blamed  the  artillery  staff  that 
appealed  to  the  civil  law  against  his  actions  —  the  judge 
asked  if  he  would  sign  his  declaration. 

"  Willingly,  monsieur,"  he  replied,  casting  a  glance 
over  my  papers, "  very  willingly,  and  with  both  hands." 

Proud  of  the  position  in  which  he  had  placed  the 
machine  of  administration,  he  was  about  to  leave  the 
office,  when  the  judge  stopped  him  as  he  reached  the 
doorway,  by  saying,  in  the  tone  of  a  man  who  has  for- 
gotten some  insignificant  matter : 

"  Ah !  I  forgot  one  circumstance  — "  The  mali- 
cious judge  made  a  pause.  Raspail  looked  at  him  side- 
ways, while  the  judge  looked  at  nothing  at  all  as  he 
continued : 

"  Is  it  not  true  that  because  you  belong  to  a  secret 
society  —  more  secret  than  the  one  of  which  you  are 
president  —  you  have  been  obliged  to  refuse  the  cross 
of  the  Legion  of  Honour  t  In  doing  so  have  you  not 
obeyed  an  order  of  that  secret  society  }  " 

"  Monsieur,"  replied  Raspail  proudly,  "  I  am  not  here 
to  answer  personal  questions,  even  from  an  examining 
judge.  I  have  signed  the  declaration  you  have  legally 
obliged  me  to  make.  I  may  have  compromised  myself; 
I  will  not  compromise  others.  I  can  be  a  martyr,  but 
I  will  not  be  a  traitor." 

So  saying  he  departed,  but  less  proud  of  himself 
than  he  was  a  few  moments  earlier,  for  it  is  a  fact  that 
the  heads  of  secret  societies  do  not  belong  to  them- 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  17 

selves.  In  the  name  of  independence  they  have  less  lib- 
erty than  all  other  men.  They  are  compelled  to  obey, 
outside  of  legal  society,  an  inflexible  command.  They 
resemble  those  men  who,  having  broken  the  bonds  of 
marriage,  become  the  slaves  of  jealous  and  imperious 
mistresses.  The  pressure  that  secret  societies  exert  upon 
their  leaders  compelled  to  combat  a  now  superannuated 
tyranny,  almost  excuses  a  return  to  reactionary  measures. 

If  there  had  not  been  so  many  uprisings  instigated 
by  those  societies  (of  all  parties)  during  the  reign  of 
Louis-Philippe  there  would  have  been  no  cabinet  noir, 
of  which  Raspail  and  so  many  others  were  the  daily 
prey,  and  the  police  under  that  tolerant  reign  would 
not  have  been  reenforced  by  so  many  adversaries  of 
liberty. 

In  1848,  when  the  Tuileries  was  pillaged,  a  part  of 
the  secrets  of  the  cabinet  noir  were  revealed  by  a  mass 
of  letters :  some  from  Republicans  like  Raspail,  Ledru- 
Rollin,  and  Blanqui ;  others  from  Monarchists  like 
Prince  Talleyrand,  who  cheated  and  deceived  Louis- 
Philippe  whom  he  had  macte,  just  as  he  deceived  all  the 
other  sovereigns  with  whom  he  dealt.  The  discovery  of 
this  correspondence  proved  that  the  government  born 
of  Liberty  did  not  shrink  from  domiciliary  visits,  nor 
from  corrupting  men  in  various  employs,  in  order  to 
keep  itself  posted  as  to  all  the  revolutionary  manoeu- 
vres. The  cabinet  was  suppressed  in  1848  ;  but  its  sup- 
pression was  a  good  deal  like  that  of  the  Bastille.  It 
existed  no  longer  in  name  under  the  Empire ;  but  it  ex- 
isted in  fact  at  the  Tuileries,  with  numberless  branches. 


i8  MEMOIRS   OF 

The  discovery  of  Louis  -  Philippe's  correspondences 
made  the  world  cry  out :  "  Corruption  ! "  But  afterwards 
—  what  came  ? 

I  was  not  yet  twenty-five  years  old  when  I  was  in- 
trusted, as  I  have  said,  with  the  functions  of  clerk  of 
the  court  of  the  Seine.  Later,  in  consequence  of  an 
overthrow  of  government,  I  was  suddenly  appointed  to 
a  place  in  a  Ministry,  which  retarded,  for  a  time,  my 
legitimate  advancement  in  my  chosen  career.  I  will 
presently  relate  the  circumstances  of  that  appointment, 
due  to  two  statesmen  who  acted  in  my  behalf,  each 
with  a  different  object,  but  both  from  self-interest. 

Had  it  depended  on  me,  at  this  period  of  my  life,  I 
should  have  been  content  to  remain  simply  a  clerk  of 
the  court  {^rejffier\.  I  have  had  no  other  ambition  than 
to  follow  the  inclinations  of  my  mind  and  faculties, 
using  them  for  the  good  of  my  country,  satisfying  my 
tastes,  and  securing  the  safety  of  those  who  depended 
on  me.  A  tenacious  hunter  of  the  most  dangerous  and 
crafty  criminals  of  the  city,  my  hounding  instincts  cease 
the  moment  my  prey  is  in  the  hands  of  justice.  I  take 
as  much  pains  to  lessen  the  hardships  of  a  scoundrel's 
captivity  as  I  took  to  capture  him. 

When  I  began,  as  recording  clerk  in  a  criminal  court, 
to  collate,  verify,  and  correct  the  reports  of  the  secret 
police,  that  police  had  little  in  itself  to  recommend  it. 
It  still  showed  the  hand  of  Vidocq ;  and  his  moutons 
[spies]  who  tracked  the  thieves  were  scarcely  more 
honest  than  the  game  they  hunted.  Monsieur  Allard 
was  the  first  to  crush  the  odious  theory  that  to  know 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  19 

the  ways  and  means  of  robbers  the  police  must  be  half 
rascals  themselves.  Allard,  a  skilful  administrator,  re- 
formed the  staff  of  the  agents  of  public  safety.  He 
justly  thought  that  to  inspire  respect  and  terror  in  the 
enemies  of  society  it  was  necessary  to  oppose  absolute 
honesty  to  their  vices,  and  irreproachable  conduct  to 
their  debauchery.  It  was  Allard  who  laid  the  founda- 
tion for  a  decent,  scrupulous,  and  vigilant  police  admin- 
istration, by  clearing  out,  once  for  all,  a  band  of  smirched 
men,  set  to  hunt  for  reprobates  whom  they  resembled. 

The  numerous  plots  and  attempted  outbreaks  that 
never  ceased  to  trouble  the  reign  of  Louis-Philippe 
necessitated  the  creation  of  a  double  police  —  that  of 
the  Prefecture  and  that  of  the  Chateau  [the  Tuile- 
ries]  ;  the  former  becoming  secondary  to  the  latter. 
General  Athalin,  whose  devotion  to  the  family  of  the 
new  King  dated  back  for  many  years,  was  the  supreme 
director  of  this  upper  police,  which  might,  at  that  time, 
have  been  called  the  royal  police.  It  was  to  him  that 
the  cabinet  noir  turned  over  the  compromising  letters 
and  other  revelations  of  the  secret  societies  ;  to  him  that 
the  Prefecture  sent  the  reports  and  denunciations  con- 
cerning political  plots. 

But  if  General  Athalin  found  in  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  Casimir  Perier,  a^d  in  the  Prefecture  eager 
^assistants  in  frustrating  conspirators  aiming  at  the  life 
of  the  King,  he  found  a  most  discouraging  opposition 
to  his  faithful  efforts  in  the  King  himself.  Here  is  an 
example  of  it :  A  military  plot  was  hatching  by  the 
Bonaparte  family  to  proclaim,  on  the  5th  of  May,  1831, 


20  MEMOIRS   OF 

in  the  Place  Vendome,  the  return  of  Napoleon  II. 
Ample  information  had  reached  General  Athalin  that 
Prince  Louis  Bonaparte  and  his  mother,  the  Duchesse 
de  Saint-Leu,  were  coming  from  Italy  to  proclaim  the 
son  of  the  Emperor  in  presence  of  the  glorious  relics 
of  the  Grand  Army. 

The  plot  was  a  serious  one.  The  army,  permeated 
by  carbonaro  sentiments,  was  undoubtedly  awaiting  the 
arrival  of  the  Prince  to  make  some  alarming  demon- 
stration. The  clever  Duchess,  in  order  to  throw  Louis- 
Philippe  off  his  guard,  asked  an  audience  of  His  Ma- 
jesty and  permission  to  cross  France,  with  her  son,  on 
their  way  from  Italy  to  England.  The  good-natured 
King  behaved  as  if  he  knew  nothing  of  the  Bonapart- 
ist  proceedings.  He  welcomed  the  Duchess  favourably, 
and  even  gave  her  some  money,  for  which  she  asked, 
to  enable  her  to  continue  her  journey.  On  leaving  the 
King,  she  said  that  her  son  would  have  come  with  her 
to  the  Tuileries,  to  express  his  thanks,  if  he  had  not 
been  confined  to  his  bed  by  illness. 

The  day  after  this  friendly  meeting  of  the  new  King 
and  the  ex-Queen  of  Holland,  General  Athalin,  exas- 
perated by  the  mildness  and  meekness  of  his  sovereign- 
master,  summoned  a  council  of  Ministers  at  the  palace. 

"  What  is  the  news,  gentlemen  ?  "  said  the  King,  as 
he  took  his  seat. 

"  Very  serious  news,  sire,"  replied  the  Minister  of 
War;  "  I  have  positive  information,  which  I  cannot 
doubt,  that  the  Duchesse  de  Saint-Leu  and  her  son 
have  passed  through  the  south  of  France." 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  21 

The  King  smiled. 

"  Sire,"  said  Casimir  Perier,  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
"  I  can  complete  the  information  of  his  excellency  the 
Minister  of  War.  Not  only  did  Queen  Hortense  cross 
the  south  of  France,  but  she  is  now  in  Paris,  and  Your 
Majesty  received  her  yesterday." 

The  King,  still  smiling,  replied  : 

"  You  are  so  well-informed,  my  dear  Minister,  that 
you  leave  me  no  time  to  tell  you  anything.  The  Duch- 
esse  de  Saint-Leu  came  to  see  me,  as  you  say,  and 
presented  the  excuses  of  her  son,  who  was  confined  to 
his  bed  by  illness." 

"  As  for  that,"  said  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  in 
a  grave  tone,  "  Your  Majesty  need  feel  no  anxiety.  At 
the  hour  when  Your  Majesty  received  the  mother,  the 
son  was  in  conference  with  the  leaders  of  the  Repub- 
lican party  to  overthrow  the  monarchy  in  the  name  of 
Napoleon  II.  All  is  ready  for  the  coming  revolution  if 
the  Prince  and  his  mother  are  not  immediately  arrested." 

"  Enough,  gentlemen,"  said  the  King  in  a  masterful 
tone  of  voice.  "  I  have  confidence  in  the  good  sense  of 
the  public.  The  plot  cannot  succeed.  Enough  has 
been  said  about  the  King  of  the  French ;  let  us  now 
talk  of  France." 

The  King,  who  obstinately  refused  to  pay  attention 
to  the  counsels  of  his  Ministers  or  to  the  opinions  of 
the  police,  was  forced,  on  May  5,  to  surrender  to  evi- 
dence. The  Place  Vendome  echoed  with  the  seditious 
shouts  of  the  soldiers  of  the  First  Empire.  Several 
charges  of  cavalry  were  required  to  break  up  the  begin- 


22  MEMOIRS   OF 

nings  of  a  revolt  which,  without  the  precautions  taken 
by  the  Minister  of  War  and  the  Minister  of  the  Inte- 
rior, would  have  reached  the  proportions  of  a  revolution. 
The  King  contented  himself  by  simply  withdrawing  the 
permission  he  had  given  to  Queen  Hortense.  Casimir 
Perier  was  forced  to  take  upon  himself  the  duty  of 
sending  her  into  exile. 

At  this  period  Prince  Louis  Bonaparte  was  already 
a  dangerous  conspirator ;  he  did  not  leave  France  for 
England  until  two  months  after  his  mother.  If  the  King 
had  listened  to  Casimir  Perier,  he  would  have  sent  both 
mother  and  son  to  a  distant  prison  for  the  rest  of  their 
days.  Had  he  done  so,  he  would  have  saved  the  July 
Monarchy  from  the  Strasbourg  and  Boulogne  attempts  ; 
and  the  escape  from  Ham  would  not,  perhaps,  have 
resulted,  as  its  consequence,  in  the  fall  of  the  most 
pacific  of  kings. 

Looking  back,  I  see  that,  even  then,  the  Bonapartist 
party  was  far  stronger  than  any  one  at  the  time  sup- 
posed. The  municipal  police  was  full  of  its  partisans; 
and  later,  the  Strasbourg  and  Boulogne  affairs,  and  the 
imprisonment  at  Ham,  gave  the  Prince  a  numerous 
fanatical  following  among  the  lesser  bourgeoisie  of 
Paris.  Napoleonic  liberalism  was  getting  more  and 
more  grafted  into  the  tree  of  Republicanism. 

But  this  spirit,  which  pervaded  all  classes,  started 
from  the  highest.  I  was  able  to  know  this,  beyond  a 
doubt,  by  the  actions  of  an  influential  personage,  a  dep- 
uty from  my  department,  who,  together  with  M.  Thiers, 
helped  to  strengthen  and  secure  my  modest  situation. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  23 

This  personage,  whom  I  shall  designate  in  these  Me- 
moirs by  his  initial  only,  M.  de  L ,  was  the  descend- 
ant of  a  family  whose  authority  and  fortune  had  never 
ceased  to  favour,  even  under  the  Directory,  the  ambi- 
tion of  Napoleon  I.  Faithful  to  his  traditions,  M.  de 
L- continued,  under  the  Bourbons  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  Louis-Philippe,  to  be  favourable  to  the 
Bonapartes.  He  it  was  who  decided  M.  Thiers  to 
become  the  partisan  of  Louis-Napoleon  up  to  the 
eve  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  by  keeping  before  his  mind  the 
admiration  he  had  so  brilliantly  and  publicly  vowed  to 
the  hero  of  Brumaire.  It  was  M.  de  L who,  to- 
wards the  close  of  Louis-Philippe's  reign,  detached  the 
Due  de  Morny  from  the  July  Monarchy,  to  make  him, 
what  he  ultimately  became,  the  strongest  column  of  his 
adulterine  brother's  reign.  I,  myself,  owe  it  to  M.  de 
L that  I  passed  scatheless  through  the  Napole- 
onic epoch,  of  which  I  was,  in  the  courts,  the  sworn 

supporter.  Thanks  to  M.  de  L I    became,  in  my 

pursuit  of  thieves  and  murderers,  a  useful  and  trusted 
agent  of  a  government  whose  principles  I  did  not  share. 

I  must  now  turn  back  for  a  moment  and  relate  the 
singular  circumstances  under  which,  while  still  a  mere 

copying  clerk  at  the  Palais  de  Justice,  M.  de  L 

caused  me  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  M.  Thiers. 

In  July,  1830,  while  the  fighting  was  still  going  on 
in  Paris,  M.  de  L took  me  with  him  to  his  coun- 
try house  at  Montmorency.  His  nearest  neighbour  was 
one  of  the  most  ardent  promoters  of  the  revolution 
then  in  progress  —  namely,  M.  Thiers ;  who  was  wait- 


24  MEMOIRS   OF 

ing,  with  eager  impatience,  till  the  smoke  of  the  gun- 
powder cleared  away  from  Paris,  in  order  to  reappear, 
during  the  last  act,  in  a  sort  of  apotheosis.  At  Mont- 
morency, M.  de  L was  offering  prayers  for  the  son 

of  his  emperor ;  M.  Thiers,  son  of  the  Revolution,  was 
offering  prayers  for  himself  only. 

In  Paris  at  this  moment  the  populace  were  variously 
shouting  here  and  there  over  the  barricades:  "  Vive 
la  Republique  !  "  "  Vive  Napoleon  II I "  "  Vive  Henri 
VI "  The  revolution  over,  it  profited  nothing  either  to 
the  Republic,  or  to  Napoleon  II,  or  to  Henri  V.  Con- 
stitutional monarchy  arose  from  the  plebeian  victory ! 
—  another  trick  of  Prince  Talleyrand,  anxious  to  avenge 
himself  on  the  Restoration,  which  had  refused  to  re- 
cognize the  services  he  had  rendered  to  it  under  the 
Empire. 

M.  de  L ,  seizing  the  moment  when  M.  Thiers 

was  about  to  become  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  time, 
hastened  to  present  me  to  him.  He  told  him  that  I 
was  a  young  man  very  capable  of  helping  him,  both  as 
secretary  and  as  a  man  of  action.  The  moment  was 
well  chosen  by  my  protector,  always  solicitous  about 
my  future.  M.  Thiers  was  dying  to  know  what  was 
going  on  in  Paris,  especially  in  the  liberal  salons.  I 
offered  to  go  to  Paris  and  bring  an  exact  account  of 
what  was  happening.  He  accepted  my  offer  eagerly ; 
and  I,  who  was  only  twenty-three  years  old,  plunged 
head  foremost  into  the  furnace  which  M.  Thiers  himself 
had  lighted  by  his  call  to  arms  in  his  newspaper,  the 
National 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  25 

On  reaching  Paris,  I  found  that,  while  the  fighting 
was  still  going  on,  the  future  courtiers  of  the  coming 
victory  were  getting  ready,  at  the  hotel  Laffitte,  in  the 
rue  de  Valois,  to  organize  a  provisional  government. 
On  receiving  this  news,  M.  Thiers  —  who  had  been 
uncertain  whether  his  little  legs  would  have  to  run 
across  the  frontier  or  whether  his  head  might  go  to 
Paris  to  be  crowned  king  of  the  barricades  —  M.  Thiers 
set  off  at  once  for  the  hotel  Laffitte.  I  accompanied 
him,  as  secretary ;  not,  however,  without  being  lectured 

by  M.  de  L .    Pleased  as  he  was  to  see  fortune 

smile  upon  me,  he  counselled  me  not  to  trust  too  much 
in  my  new  master. 

"  My  friend,"  he  said,  "  don't  quit  your  present  posi- 
tion to  attach  yourself  exclusively  to  M.  Thiers.  That 
ambitious  man  gambles  too  heavily  with  fortune  ever 
to  make  yours.  Limping  pupil  of  Talleyrand,  he  will 
always  limp  —  like  his  master,  who  limps  in  all  ways ! 
This  revolution,  which  Thiers  has  made  with  Talleyrand 
by  cheating  him,  will  cheat  himself.  Don't  belong  to 
him,  because  M.  Thiers  belongs  to  no  one  —  unless  the 
rising  sun  be  somebody.  As  for  me,  I  am  for  Napoleon 
II,  because  /  belong,  by  tradition  and  conviction,  to 
the  Empire ;  but  M.  Thiers  belongs  only  to  himself ! " 

I  was  not  long  in  appreciating  this  severe  judgment 
on  the  character  of  the  historian  of  the  "  Consulate  and 
the  Empire." 

At  the  hotel  Laffitte,  where  M.  Thiers  found  himself 
regarded  only  as  an  historian  and  a  journalist,  he  was 
accepted  by  Talleyrand  solely  as  a  writer  writing  under 


26  MEMOIRS   OF 

dictation  —  the  dictation  of  the  leaders  of  the  army,  of 
the  magistracy,  of  the  bourgeoisie ;  and  he  did  actually 
draw  up,  without  a  draft,  an  Orleanist  proclamation. 
M.  Thiers,  who,  three  days  earlier,  had  caused  a  crown 
to  fall  at  St.  Cloud,  was  compelled,  under  the  orders  of 
Talleyrand,  to  pick  it  up  and  carry  it  from  the  hotel 
Laffitte  to  the  Palais-Royal ! 

I  remained  at  the  hotel  Laffitte,  as  the  improvised 
secretary  of  the  provisional  government,  so  long  as 
that  government  lasted.  After  the  Orleanist  proclama- 
tion it  dissolved ;  but  not  until  it  had  instituted  a  lieu- 
tenant-generalship of  the  kingdom.  From  that  day  I 
saw  no  more  of  M.  Thiers.  He  who  had  expected  to  be 
the  responsible  sovereign  of  a  new  Republican  govern- 
ment, had  gone  to  the  Palais-Royal  to  salute  the  rising 
sun — the  coming  King,  Louis-Philippe. 

My  duties,  as  improvised  secretary  of  the  provisional 
government,  had  kept  me  in  a  little  office  opening  into 
the  antechamber  of  the  large  council-room.  Every 
morning  I  received  the  persons  who  solicited  the  fa- 
vour of  being  allowed  to  speak  with  the  members  of 
the  council,  and  I  wrote  down  their  statements,  true 
or  false,  of  their  services  to  the  national  "  cause."  On 
my  declaration,  signed  by  the  petitioner,  the  new  sov- 
ereigns of  the  government,  issuing  from  the  barricades, 
accepted  or  rejected  the  request  of  the  aspiring  cour- 
tier. In  the  one  week  that  I  passed  in  that  little  office, 
I  saw  defile  before  me  all  the  celebrated  men  of  the 
day;  and  I  must  say  they  seemed  to  me  very  small. 
They  humbled  themselves  before  me  because,  by  a 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  27 

stroke  of  my  pen,  I  could  open  to  them  the  door  of  the 
temple  of  fortune,  of  which  I  was,  in  truth,  the  mere 
usher.  I  soon  wearied  of  this  function,  in  which  I  con- 
tinued only  just  long  enough  to  satisfy  my  curiosity  to 
see  and  know  such  men  as  d'Argoult,  Odilon  Barrot, 
Dupin,  Guizot,  Casimir  Delavigne,  etc.,  etc.;  all  those 
men  of  the  past,  diplomats,  financiers,  artists,  and 
writers,  whom  the  political  storm  had  thrown  down, 
and  who  were  all  striving  now  to  hook  on  to  the  new 
ladder  raised  by  a  temporizing  power. 

It  was  during  my  fleeting  function  as  clerk  and  usher 
to  the  provisional  government  that  I  met  a  personage 
who  afterwards  made  himself  a  name  in  artistic  and 
literary  philanthropy  —  Baron  Taylor.  Certainly  I  lit- 
tle expected  to  see  in  the  antechamber  of  the  hotel 
Laffitte  the  former  aide-de-camp  of  the  Due  d'An- 
gouleme,  the  equerry  of  the  staff  of  the  Trocadero, 
saluting  the  sun  of  July  and  the  return  of  the  "three 
colours." 

At  this  period  of  his  life  Baron  Taylor  (whose  title  of 
nobility  was  a  personal  reward  conferred  upon  him 
by  the  fallen  monarch)  was  already  in  middle  life.  Tall, 
with  a  vigorous  frame,  he  had  the  slightly  theatrical 
movements  which  characterize  a  diplomat,  a  soldier,  or 
an  artist.  Abundant  hair  surrounded  his  lively,  expres- 
sive face,  lighted  by  brilliant  eyes ;  his  large  jaws  and 
dilated  nostrils  expressed,  as  fully  as  did  his  piercing 
glance,  unquenchable  vivacity  and  great  shrewdness, 
joined  to  intense  ambition.  Though  he  was  very  vigor- 
ous, his  limbs  had  the  ingratiating  suppleness   that 


28  MEMOIRS   OF 

marks  the  courtier  by  profession.  He  was  obsequious, 
and  yet  he  had  a  lofty  air  which  inspired  involuntary 
respect.  When  he  gave  me  his  name  I  bowed;  but  the 
baron  bowed  lower  than  his  humble  servant.  A  prac- 
tised courtier,  he  knew  by  experience  that  there  are  no 
little  subalterns  for  him  who  seeks  to  flatter  fortune. 

When  I  excused  myself  for  asking  the  object  of  his 
visit,  explaining  that  my  duty  required  me  to  transmit 
his  wishes  to  the  council  in  writing,  he  gracefully  ac- 
quiesced and  dictated  to  me  the  following  words : 

"  Former  aide-de-camp  to  the  Due  d'Angouleme ; 
designer  to  His  Highness;  on  amission  into  Egypt 
when  King  Charles  X  fell  under  the  stroke  of  the  na- 
tional demand ;  Baron  Taylor  has  returned  from  the 
East,  guided  by  patriotism.  While  preserving  a  pla- 
tonic  gratitude  to  the  fallen  monarchy,  he  feels  it  his 
dutv,  at  a  moment  when  France  has  so  much  need  of 
money,  to  return  and  lay  upon  the  altar  of  the  country 
the  sum  that  remains  to  him  —  namely,  one  hundred 
thousand  francs  —  of  the  five  hundred  thousand  which 
he  had  received  for  his  artistic  and  scientific  explora- 
tions along  the  banks  of  the  Nile." 

Full  of  admiration  for  a  man  who  forgot  his  political 
principles  and  affections  to  think  only  of  his  country 
and  his  duty  as  a  citizen,  I  hastened  to  obtain  for  him 
the  audience  he  desired.  Eight  days  later  the  generous 
baron  received  an  acknowledgment  of  his  devotion  in 
being  appointed  director  of  the  Theatre-Fran9ais. 

Alas  !  every  medal  has  its  reverse.  The  then  famous 
actor  Samson,  Baron  Taylor's  friend  and  schoolmate, 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  29 

had  followed  the  latter's  example  in  passing  promptly 
from  the  Bourbon  camp  to  that  of  the  Orleans.  Now 
Samson,  the  great  comedian,  nurtured  in  the  school  of 
Moliere,  had,  like  Mile.  Mars,  a  horror  of  the  roman- 
ticists. He  saw,  with  repugnance,  that  under  the  new 
regime  the  romantic  school  might  invade  the  temple 
sacred  to  classic  art.  When,  on  the  accession  of  the 
popular  king,  it  was  a  question  of  rewarding  the  baron's 
devotion,  Samson  and  Mile.  Mars  took  counsel  together, 
and  petitioned  the  new  government  to  make  Baron 
Taylor,  on  whose  classicism  they  relied,  their  future  di- 
rector. But  Taylor,  always  diplomatic  and  ever  turning 
to  the  side  from  which  blew  the  wind,  opened  wide  the 
sacred  doors  to  the  apostles  of  romanticism  —  to  Victor 
Hugo  and  to  Alexandre  Dumas /^r^/ 

Then,  indeed,  the  new  director  of  the  Theatre-Fran- 
9ais  had  to  bear  the  savage  reproaches  of  his  friend 
Samson,  who  reminded  him  under  what  conditions  he 
and  Mile.  Mars  had  petitioned  for  his  appointment. 

"  My  friend,"  said  the  baron  (who  at  the  Theatre- 
Fran9ais  was  a  good  deal  like  King  Solomon  between 
the  two  mothers),  "my  friend,  I  love  Moliere  dearly, 
but  I  don't  detest  Shakespeare." 

However,  the  recriminations  of  Samson  and  Mile. 
Mars,  the  two  oldest  comedians  of  the  company,  became 
so  bitter  against  him  that  he  resigned  the  directorship, 
remarking  quietly : 

"  When  it  rains,  I  put  up  my  umbrella." 

This  quarrel  between  the  great  comedian  and  the 
baron  was  only  a  passing  affair,  after  all.    It  did  not 


30  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

prevent  Samson,  a  man  of  true  devotion,  from  assisting 
his  old  friend  to  found  the  latter's  first  philanthropic 
society,  called  the  "  Artists'  Association."  In  all.  Baron 
Taylor  founded  five  artistic  associations  in  Paris.  Hu- 
manity should  be  as  grateful  to  him  as  it  is  to  Saint- 
Vincent  de  Paul,  or  to  Mirabeau,  the  friend  of  man. 

As  for  me,  as  soon  as  order  was  restored,  and  my 
curiosity  was  satisfied,  I  made  haste  to  leave  the  hotel 
Laffitte,  and  resume  my  functions  of  clerk  at  the  Palais 
de  Justice.  I  quitted  the  society  of  politicians  for  that 
of  criminals,  who  share  with  the  former  the  vices  of 
humanity,  and  do  not  boast  of  possessing  all  its  virtues. 


CHAPTER  III 

HOW   I    BECAME  ACQUAINTED   WITH 
MY   FUTURE   MASTER 


A  YEAR  had  not  elapsed  since  I  had  resumed 
my  functions  as  clerk  at  the  Palais  de  Justice 
before  an  adventure  befel  me,  which  came 
near  ending  in  a  bloody  drama.  It  led  to  my  knowing, 
in  the  rue  aux  Feves,  the  most  disreputable  quarter  of 
Paris,  a  young  man  who,  eighteen  years  later,  stepped 
into  the  place  of  a  sovereign  for  whose  fall  he  had 
plotted  and  worked  for  that  length  of  time.  The  affair, 
improbable  as  it  may  seem,  is  none  the  less  true. 

One  day,  on  the  open  square  of  the  Palais  de  Justice, 
which  was  then  used  as  a  place  where  criminals  found 
guilty  in  the  assize  courts  were  pilloried,  I  noticed  a 
young  girl  about  seventeen  years  of  age  standing  close 
to  the  scaffold  on  which  three  men,  condemned  to  the 
galleys,  were  exposed  to  the  public  gaze.  The  face  of 
one  of  them  struck  me  as  familiar,  but  I  could  not  at 
the  moment  place  him. 

The  girl  was  extremely  pretty.  Though  her  clothes 
were  sordid,  her  air  and  manners  were  those  of  a  sou- 
brette  of  the  old  regime ;  and  they  formed  a  curious 
contrast  to  the  hangdog  look  of  the  felons  at  whom 


32  MEMOIRS   OF 

she  was  gazing.  Suddenly  she  approached  me,  but 
without  coquetry,  and  asked  me  to  go  and  see  her  that 
same  evening  in  the  rue  aux  Feves,  giving  me  the 
number  of  the  house.  Then  she  ran  away  Hke  a  fawn ; 
but,  as  she  did  so,  I  noticed  that  she  exchanged  a  look 
with  one  of  the  men  bound  on  the  scaffold;  and  I  also 
noticed  that  the  smile  she  gave  him  had  a  certain  cruel 
and  malignant  gaiety. 

As  soon  as  I  entered  the  Palais,  I  lost  no  time  in 
convincing  myself  that  the  house  in  the  rue  aux  Feves, 
which  the  girl  had  named  to  me,  was  precisely  the  most 
dangerous  and  suspected  house  in  the  city.  It  was, 
in  fact,  the  famous  Cabaret  du  Lapin  Blanc,  afterwards 
made  celebrated  by  Eugene  Sue,  who  undoubtedly  knew 
the  circumstances  I  am  about  to  relate. 

In  those  days  the  quarter  called  specially  the  Cite, 
was  the  rendezvous  of  all  the  evil-doers  of  Paris.  By 
that  fatality  which  seems  to  push  unhappy  souls  tempt- 
ed to  suicide  to  the  brink  of  an  abyss,  so  do  villains, 
thieves,  and  murderers  congregate  in  the  Cite,  close 
to  the  very  walls  of  the  Palais  de  Justice.  In  vain  do 
the  towers  of  the  Palais  overlook,  like  an  eternal  threat, 
this  labyrinth  of  streets  where  criminals  of  all  kinds 
lurk  after  nightfall.  It  was  in  these  damp  and  noisome 
regions,  where  fetid  alleys  led  to  filthy  stairways,  that 
a  mass  of  outlaws,  human  vermin,  swarmed ;  here  the 
most  monstrous  crimes  were  planned,  the  heroes  of 
which  were  soon  arraigned  in  the  courts  before  they 
departed  to  the  galleys,  or  died  upon  the  scaffold. 

I  remembered  that  the  wine-shop  of  the  Lapin  Blanc 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  33 

was  the  most  iniquitous  lair  in  the  Cite.  Six  months , 
earlier  a  crime  had  been  committed  there ;  a  man  had 
been  murdered  in  its  cellars,  and  one  of  the  three 
men  pilloried  that  morning,  an  old  fagot  (to  use  a  term 
of  the  galleys),  was  one  of  the  murderers.  The  singular 
look  the  young  girl  had  cast  at  the  man  after  appoint- 
ing me  to  meet  her  at  that  very  Lapin  Blanc,  came 
into  my  mind,  and  I  shuddered.  Some  months  earlier 
I  had  gone  to  that  wine-shop,  with  the  examining 
judge  of  my  section,  to  make  a  report  on  the  frequenters 
of  that  cut-throat  den,  in  consequence  of  a  mysterious 
murder  which  had  there  been  committed,  but  for  which 
the  guilty  man  could  not  be  convicted  for  want  of 
actual  proof. 

I  own  that  these  recollections,  coming  to  me  on  the 
discovery  that  the  address  given  me  was  that  of  this 
villainous  lair,  warned  me  of  danger.  But  I  was  young 
and  very  ardent  in  my  work,  and  without  further 
reflection  I  went,  at  ten  o'clock  that  evening,  to  the 
police  station  in  the  rue  de  Jerusalem.  There  I  told  the 
officer  in  charge  that  I  was  going  to  the  Lapin  Blanc, 
to  study  the  locality ;  and  I  asked  him  to  put  a  certain 
number  of  policemen  at  my  disposal,  who,  the  moment 
I  blew  my  whistle,  were  to  make  a  general  raid  upon 
the  wine-shop. 

Secure  in  these  precautions,  and  armed  with  my 
whistle,  I  made  my  way  to  the  rue  aux  Feves.  It  was 
a  singular  street,  forming  a  horseshoe  in  the  centre  of 
the  Cite.  The  upper  floors  of  its  dilapidated  buildings, 
supported  on  mouldy  pillars,  overhung  the  shops  on 


34  MEMOIRS   OF 

the  ground  floor.  The  iron-barred  windows  that  did  not 
belong  to  the  wine-shops,  to  the  houses  of  prostitutes, 
and  receivers  of  stolen  goods,  were  never  lighted  at 
night ;  so  much  did  their  inhabitants  dread  the  popu- 
lation around  them. 

The  Lapin  Blanc  was  at  the  centre  of  the  rue  aux 
Feves.  It  was  the  tavern  of  the  past-masters  of  theft 
and  crime.  A  large,  low  room,  its  ceiling  striped  with 
black  and  smoky  rafters,  held  six  tables,  fastened  to  the 
whitewashed  walls.  The  tables  formed  in  line  before 
a  counter,  or  bar,  covered  with  zinc  and  bristling  with 
jugs  bound  with  iron.  These  jugs  were  chained  to  the 
counter ;  the  tables  and  benches  were  chained  to  the 
walls. 

The  room  opened  upon  an  alley,  through  a  door 
lighted  by  a  cracked  lantern,  on  which  was  printed 
in  red  letters, "  Night  lodgings  here."  At  this  period, 
when  a  thief  had  "made  a  stroke,"  when  his  pocket 
"  snored,"  all  his  particular  band  rendezvoused  at  the 
Lapin  BlanCy  to  eat  and  drink  and  make  merry  on  the 
proceeds  of  the  "swag."  If,  in  the  interval,  he  was 
"nabbed,"  never  did  the  band  "peach"  upon  him.  In 
vain  had  the  police  tried  to  make  the  master  of  the 
establishment  open  his  lips;  never  had  they  got  even 
a  stray  word  from  him.  He  was,  in  fact,  a  free  mason  of 
the  haute  p^gre  [the  upper  class  of  experienced  thieves ; 
they  never  commit  small  thefts,  and  call  those  who  do 
so,  pegriots\  When  the  police  endeavoured  to  make 
him  talk,  "he  rowed  a  boat";  which  means,  in  their 
parlance,  he  led  them  from  lie  to  lie. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  35 

I  had  proof  of  this  in  the  case  I  have  mentioned  — 
a  murder  in  the  cellars  of  the  Lapin  Blanc,  The  police 
had  captured  the  murderer,  but  they  could  not  find  the 
body  of  the  murdered  man.  I  went  the  next  day,  with 
the  commissary  of  police  and  the  examining  judge,  all 
through  these  cellars,  which  were  really  a  long  subter- 
ranean passage  leading  down  to  the  city  sewers.  I 
now  remembered  having  stated  in  my  proces-verbal 
that  I  thought  a  body  might  be  lost  in  these  cellars 
by  being  forced  into  the  sewer  and  carried  to  the 
Seine. 

When,  on  the  evening  I  am  now  relating,  I  entered 
the  room  of  the  Lapin  Blanc,  I  saw,  standing  at  the 
counter,  a  man  wearing  an  otter-skin  cap,  the  visor  of 
which  concealed  his  face.  He  stood  erect,  with  his 
hands  resting  on  a  jug.  His  attitude  looked  to  me 
suspicious. 

I  advanced  without  shutting  the  door  behind  me. 
At  a  table  on  the  right  were  two  fellows  playing  cards. 
They  seemed  absorbed  in  the  game,  but  I  noticed  that 
under  the  table  they  held  two  long  knives.  Did  they 
doubt  each  other  ?  Were  they  both  prepared  to  draw 
the  blood  of  the  first  who  cheated  to  the  other's  injury .? 

At  this  moment  the  girl  I  had  seen  in  the  morning 
came  from  the  end  of  the  room  and  placed  herself  at 
the  counter  beside  the  man  with  the  cap.  Pointing  her 
finger  at  me,  she  screamed  out : 

"  There  's  the  villain  I  lured  this  morning  at  the 
scaffold.  Father,"  she  added,  her  mouth  quivering, 
her  eyes  sparkling,  "we  must  wash  his  linen  in  the 


36  MEMOIRS   OF 

bloody .    Quick,  you  fellows,  and  as  soon  as  he  is 

chilled  take  him  to  the  cellar  he  knows  so  well!" 

I  had  scarcely  time  to  spring  to  the  door,  which  I  had 
left  half  open,  before  the  two  men  at  cards  had  seized 
their  knives  and  were  bounding  towards  me.  I  felt  for 
my  whistle  to  call  the  police,  who  were  waiting  at  each 
crossing  of  the  rue  aux  Feves. 

Horrors  !  I  could  not  find  it  —  it  was  gone  —  I  was 
lost! 

I  felt  the  steel  of  one  of  the  murderers,  while  the 
other  seized  me  round  the  body  and  caught  my  hands 
to  deliver  me  helpless  to  the  assassin.  In  vain  I  strug- 
gled against  his  muscular  strength.  His  arms  were 
iron.  An  instant  more,  and  the  knife  of  his  companion 
would  have  cut  my  throat,  when  the  noise  of  many 
steps  echoed  in  the  alley. 

Terrified  at  the  imminence  of  the  danger,  I  had 
closed  my  eyes  that  I  might  not  see  the  gestures  of  the 
father  and  the  fury  who  were  commanding  my  execu- 
tioners. I  thought  I  was  dead,  when  a  cluster  of  men 
came  around  me,  and  I  heard  a  well-known  voice  say 
over  my  shoulder : 

"  Enough,  enough,  Nina-Fleurette !  enough  of  this 
nonsense !  Let  my  friend  Claude  alone !  If  you  carry 
the  thing  too  far,  to  teach  him  not  to  be  inquisitive, 
I,  and  others,  will  punish  you." 

As  if  by  enchantment  the  arms  of  the  murderers 
fell  from  me,  and  the  furious  gestures  of  the  master 
of  the  place  and  his  daughter  threatened  me  no  longer. 
I  was  free !  But  —  inconceivable  sight !  —  I  saw  before 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  37 

me,  whom  ?  M.  de  L ,  my  protector,  whose  presence 

at  the  Lapin  Blanc  was  as  inexplicable  as  the  sudden 
change  in  my  favour  produced  by  him.  He  wore  the 
short  linen  blouse  of  a  workman,  as  did  a  young  man 
who  accompanied  him ;  the  rest  of  their  clothes  were 
shabby.  The  young  man  appeared  to  be,  like  himself, 
a  man  of  society  in  disguise. 

The  singular  face  of  the  latter  struck  me.  Though 
somewhat  disagreeable,  the  expression  of  the  eyes  was 
extraordinarily  gentle;  their  sparkling  pupils  seemed 
bathed  in  a  magnetic  fluid  that  fascinated  all  they  gazed 
upon.  I  noticed  that  Nina-Fleurette  had  turned  pale ; 
then,  shaking  herself,  she  was  transformed  from  a  fury 
into  a  smiling  bacchante  under  the  glance  of  the  young 
man,  which  never  for  a  moment  left  her. 

In  spite  of  the  danger  I  had  just  escaped,  the  presence 
of  this  personage  in  that  cut-throat  place,  as  inexplicable 

as  that  of  M.  de  L ,  perplexed  me.    I  myself  could 

not  escape  the  fascination  of  that  young  man  whose 
impassible  face,  with  its  almost  grotesque  features,  ex- 
ercised through  its  eyes  so  extraordinary  a  power.  This 
man, —  I  divined  him  at  a  first  glance,  —  placed  on  the 
lowest  rung  of  the  social  ladder,  might  be  the  most 
dangerous  of  villains ;  on  the  highest,  he  might  become 
the  envied  rival  of  the  great.  He  was  born  to  subdue, 
or  to  perish.  Short-legged,  with  a  long  waist,  he  was 
framed  like  those  great  birds  which  are  all  body  sup- 
ported by  webbed  feet.  He  waddled  as  he  walked,  like 
a  vulture.  There  was  a  mixture  in  this  young  man  of 
the  crafty  bandit  and  the  gentleman  bandit.    His  coun- 


38  MEMOIRS   OF 

tenance,  almost  burlesque,  yet  attractive,  was  not  out 
of  keeping  with  the  corrupt  faces  around  him,  which 
it  mastered  while  harmonizing  with  them. 

While  I  was  examining  this  curious  companion  of  M. 

de  L ,  the  cortege  of  scoundrels  who  had  entered 

with  them  took  their  places  at  the  tables.  Nina-Fleur- 
ette,  indifferent  now  to  vengeance,  flung  herself  on  the 
neck  of  the  young  man,  who  left  M.  de  L to  em- 
brace her.  As  for  me,  I  was  forgotten.  All  my  instincts 
as  a  policeman  were  aroused,  and  I  had  even  lost  con- 
sciousness, in  presence  of  this  inexplicable  scene,  of  the 
horrible  danger  I  had  just  escaped.  But  I  was  not  left 
long  under  the  impressions  of  the  strange  scene  before 

me.   M.  de  L came  to  my  side,  and  said,  in  a  low 

voice : 

"  Go  away  now,  and  come  to  me  to-morrow  morning 
in  my  little  house  at  Passy.  You  shall  then  know  how 
I  had  the  luck  to  save  you ;  and  you  shall  also  know 
about  that  young  man  who  accompanies  me." 

I  went  away,  but  before  I  went  I  discovered  that  not 
only  my  whistle,  but  my  watch  and  my  purse  had  dis- 
appeared !  As  I  reached  one  of  the  ends  of  the  rue  aux 
Feves  I  saw  the  three-cornered  hats  of  the  policemen 
who  were  still  awaiting  my  signal.  In  the  interests  of 
M.  de  L ,  I  passed  on  without  speaking  to  them. 

The  next  morning  I  was  punctual  to  my  appoint- 
ment at  Passy.  I  had  hardly  entered  the  room  when 
M.  de  L came  to  me  with  a  furious  air,  exclaiming : 

"  Ha !  a  pretty  business  you  did  yesterday !  After 
incurring  the  vengeance  of  the  Prince's  mistress,  Nina, 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  39 

you  must  needs  have  the  Prince  arrested  at  the  corner 
of  the  rue  aux  Feves,  and  he  is  now  in  Sainte-Pelagie ! 
If  I,  too,  am  not  in  prison,  it  is  no  thanks  to  you ;  I  es- 
caped your  hounds  because  your  Prefect  is  afraid  of 
me." 

I  was  confounded.    I  suppose  I  stood  with  my  mouth 

open  and  my  eyes  staring,  for  M.  de  L 's  wrath 

suddenly  changed  into  loud  hilarity. 

"  True,  true,"  he  said,  "  of  course  you  know  nothing 
about  it ;  you  are  only  a  clerk ;  but  your  office  must 
have  known  all  about  it.  Well,  let  me  tell  you  that  the 
young  man  whom  I  accompanied  last  night  is  Prince 
Louis  Bonaparte,  son  of  Queen  Hortense,  on  a  mission 
to  the  dangerous  classes  of  the  Cite.  The  King  thinks 
him  ill  in  bed ;  or  did  think  so  some  time  ago,  when 
the  Prince  summoned  all  the  old  remnants  of  the  Grand 
Army  to  the  Place  Vendome." 

At  the  name  of  Prince  Louis  I  uttered  an  exclama- 
tion of  surprise,  and  I  asked  by  what  combination  of 
circumstances  they  had  managed  to  save  my  life  by 
exercising  power  over  men  so  outside  of  their  social 
condition. 

"  A  prince,"  replied  M.  de  L ,  "  ought  to  know 

everything  and  everybody.  You  are  aware  that,  after 
Napoleon  II,  Prince  Louis  is  the  one  whom  our  Em- 
peror appointed  to  succeed  him.  Now  Prince  Louis 
is  deeply  interested  in  the  question  of  pauperism,  and 
he  studies  it  among  the  most  abject  classes  before  he 
is  called  upon  to  solve  it.  That  is  why  you  saw  him  at 
the  Lapin  Blanc,    It  is  there  that  he  bestows  his  alms 


40  MEMOIRS   OF 

on  the  disinherited ;  whom  a  selfish  society  sends  to 
the  galleys,  but  whom  the  Napoleons,  once  in  power, 
will  reinstate,  by  less  barbarous  laws,  in  that  society  of 
which  they  are  now  the  pariahs." 

I  did  not  venture  to  reply  to  M.  de  L ,  though 

I  had  a  mind  to  say  that  Prince  Louis's  charity,  given, 
in  the  interests  of  his  dynasty,  to  galley-slaves,  was 
likewise  bestowed  on  pretty  girls,  who  were  also  crim- 
inals. But  I  held  my  tongue,  lest  I  should  irritate  my 
friend  and  protector. 

Nevertheless,  I  did  say  (by  way  of  excusing  myself) 
that  if  the  Prince  had  been  arrested  by  my  policemen 
it  was  not  so  much  because  of  his  philanthropy,  but 
because  he  was  conspiring  against  the  government,  and 
I  added  that,  so  far  as  I  was  concerned,  my  department 
was  not  responsible  for  conspirators. 

•'  You  are  right,  my  friend,"  replied  M.  de  L , 

now  quite  softened;  "after  all,  though  the  Prince  is  in 
prison,  he  has  nothing  to  fear.  They  will  let  him  out, 
without  a  flourish  of  trumpets,  in  spite  of  Casimir 
Perier,  who  is  always  against  us.  On  our  side  we  have 
your  Prefect  and  General  Lafayette.  If  the  King  dares 
to  keep  the  Prince  in  prison,  we  shall  act  on  Lafayette. 
If  that  timid  individual,  who,  out  of  love  for  popular- 
ity, plumes  himself  on  being  the  '  soldier  of  Liberty,' 
goes  back  on  us,  we  shall  compromise  him  —  we  have 
the  means.  Now,  my  dear  Claude,  I  warn  you,  when- 
ever you  find  a  Napoleonist,  male  or  female,  in  your 
path,  shut  your  eyes,  and  don't  open  them  on  any  but 
your  thieves.  Remember  that  a  Napoleonist  saved  you 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  41 

from  the  vengeance  of  men  who  had  sworn  your  death. 
Au  revoir^ 

I  left  him,  convinced  that  the  Bonapartist  party  was 
far  more  powerful  than  was  generally  supposed,  in- 
asmuch as  it  had  ramifications  from  the  very  lowest 
classes  of  society  to  the  most  respected  and  respectable 
man  in  France,  General  Lafayette.  I  myself  was  a  liv- 
ing example  of  the  mysterious  authority  exercised  in 
the  dark  by  that  party. 

At  this  period,  that  is  to  say,  a  few  days  after  May 
5,  1 83 1,  and  the  revolt  in  the  Place  Vendome,  Prince 
Louis  made  his  first  appearance  in  prison  at  the  same 
time  as  Raspail  [physiologist,  chemist,  and  revolution- 
ist, president  of  the  Societe  des  Amis  du  Peuple],  I 
transcribe  a  passage  from  one  of  Raspail's  letters,  written 
from  Sainte-Pelagie,  in  which  he  describes  his  prison 
companion  Prince  Louis : 

"  The  Prince  is  not  yet  a  general ;  he  is  two  grades 
short  of  it,  but  he  has  something  better ;  he  has  in  his 
veins  a  few  drops  of  the  blood  of  Napoleon  the  Great. 
The  authenticity  of  his  origin  is  in  his  make.  Napoleon 
had  not  a  nail  more  to  his  boots  than  this  young  man. 
He  wears  the  amulet  of  the  great  captain  and  his  gray 
overcoat,  adopted  in  1804  and  worn  till  18 14.  He  edits 
a  republican  newspaper,  the  name  of  which  conflicts 
with  imperial  pretensions  — '  The  Revolution.'  Do  the 
funds  for  this  newspaper  come  from  the  Napoleons  ?  or 
from  the  Prefecture  of  Police  ?  The  last  hypothesis  is 
admissible,  though  singular;  for  the  management  of  that 
newspaper,  *The  Revolution,'  is  a  stepping-stone  by 


42  MEMOIRS   OF 

which  to  attain  the  honours  of  the  police.  Issuing  from 
its  offices,  the  bookkeeper  may  become  officer  of  the 
peace,  head  of  the  section,  commissary  of  police,  in- 
spector of  the  markets,  etc.  As  for  the  furnisher  of  the 
funds,  his  profit  is  in  the  situations  he  obtains  for  others ; 
while  the  debtor,  in  his  quality  as  prince,  lives  —  en 
prince —  in  a  separate  pavilion  that  communicates  with 
the  palace  court. 

"  The  illustrious  prisoner  now  with  us  grants  audi- 
ences ;  the  jailers  are  his  chamberlains.  In  the  evening, 
after  dark,  the  air  resounds  with  military  music,  made 
by  his  partisans,  who  give  him  a  serenade.  When  he 
deigns  to  take  a  walk  in  the  courtyard  his  staff,  which 
followed  him  into  captivity,  falls  into  line  at  his  ap- 
proach, in  the  attitude  of  soldiers  without  arms,  salut- 
ing with  their  hands  at  their  shakos. 

"  The  examination  of  his  case  will  not  take  place  as 
yet ;  a  Pretender  is  not  treated  like  the  small  fry,  of 
which  I  am  one." 

Raspail  was  mistaken  in  one  statement :  the  criminal 
examination  into  the  Bonapartist  conspiracy  was  stopped 

before  it  began.  They  discovered,  as  M.  de  L had 

given  me  to  understand,  the  relations  of  General  La- 
fayette with  the  son  of  Queen  Hortense.  The  General 
was,  in  fact,  compromised  by  letting  his  support  be 
expected  by  this  conspiracy,  plotted  in  the  interest  of 
Napoleon  II.  They  also  discovered  that  Prince  Louis 
and  his  mother,  on  their  way  from  Italy  through  France, 
had  everywhere  sown  a  leaven  of  discord  which  the 
Carbonari  were  stirring  up.  They  found  that  at  Lyons, 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  43 

Grenoble,  and  Lille,  revolts  were  to  break  out  simul- 
taneously with  one  in  Paris ;  that  the  garrisons  were 
partly  won  over;  and  that  a  certain  number  of  the 
members  of  both  Chambers  were  prepared  to  put 
themselves  under  Lafayette,  to  iorra,  provisionally,  the 
nucleus  of  a  national  Napoleonic  Chamber. 

Had  it  not  been  for  the  energy  of  Casimir  Perier, 
who,  in  spite  of  Louis-Philippe,  cut  the  evil  at  its  roots ; 
and  had  it  not  been  for  the  mere  chance  that  placed 
policemen  on  the  track  of  that  Wandering  Jew  of 
plots,  this  Napoleonic  outbreak  would  have  had  an- 
other conclusion  than  that  of  the  5th  of  May. 

But  Louis-Philippe,  worthy  man,  could  not  endure 
that  any  suspicion  should  arise  that  he  was  not  the 
"  Citizen- King,"  the  sovereign  chosen  by  the  popular 
voice.  He  hastened,  therefore,  to  smother  the  whole 
affair.  He  opened,  without  a  sound,  the  gates  of  Sainte- 
Pelagie,  and  Prince  Louis  joined  his  mother  in  Lon- 
don to  renew  his  plots. 

This  adventure  of  the  Prince  in  the  Cite  was  known 
to  others  besides  myself.  The  lair  of  the  Lapin-Blanc, 
the  scene  of  that  adventure,  must  also  have  been  known 
to  Eugene  Sue,  whose  father,  formerly  surgeon-physi- 
cian of  Napoleon  I,  had  retained,  like  M.  de  L , 

very  close  relations  with  the  Bonaparte  family.  For  my 
part,  I  have  always  felt  convinced  that  Prince  Louis 
was  the  original  of  Prince  Rodolphe,  the  hero  of  the 
My s  feres  de  Paris, 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   END   OF  A   REIGN   AND   ITS 
CONSEQUENCES 


I  REMAINED  for  eighteen  years  at  the  Palais  de 
Justice,  as  clerk  of  the  criminal  courts  of  the  Seine. 
I  owed  this  long  period  in  one  grade  as  much  to 
my  lack  of  ambition  as  to  the  zeal  which  I  put  into 
a  function  more  useful  than  brilliant.  A  good  clerk  is 
a  very  precious  assistant  for  a  judge.  The  proces-verbal 
[written  minutes  of  all  the  facts  and  proceedings  of 
a  case]  which  he  draws  up  of  the  statements  of  the 
accused,  of  the  testimony  (more  or  less  conclusive)  of 
the  commissaries  of  police,  is  the  fundamental  basis  of 
a  magistrate's  judgement.  Often  they  have  done  me 
the  justice  to  say  that  vay  proces  verbaux,  without  par- 
tiality, without  acrimony,  were  elucidated  with  a  clear- 
ness that  lessened  the  delicate  and  difficult  labour  of 
the  judge. 

It  was  to  this  slender  merit,  developed  by  long  ex- 
perience, that  I  owed  the  distinction  of  being  almost 
the  dean  of  the  clerks  of  the  Palais  de  Justice.  It  was 
not  until  1848,  shortly  before  the  revolution  that  led  to 
the  fall  of  Louis-Philippe,  that  I  succeeded  in  becom- 
ing a  commissary  of  police.      After  that  time  I  was 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  45 

commissary  at  Meaux,  commissary  at  Passy,  commis- 
sary at  Batignolles,  and  commissary  at  Menilmontant, 
attached  to  the  section  of  the  theatres ;  after  that  I  was 
commissary  at  the  markets ;  then  commissary  of  the 
judiciary  delegations,  before  becoming,  under  the  Em- 
pire, chief  of  police  \chef  de  la  police  de  surete  generale\ 
in  that  very  Palais  de  Justice  from  which  I  had  issued 
a  simple  clerk.  Of  this  last  situation  I  had  an  unusu- 
ally long  lease,  because  France,  under  the  Empire,  had 
eighteen  years  of  respite;  and  during  those  years  all 
functionaries  could  live  under  the  laws  without  burden- 
ing the  employes  of  a  regime  that  was,  nevertheless, 
autocratic.  It  is,  above  all,  in  my  post  as  chief  of  the 
secret  police  (which  began  in  June,  1859)  that  I  shall 
be  able  to  show  myself  in  my  true  light  —  a  Gil  Bias, 
with  a  good-natured  turn  of  mind  and  a  benevolent 
countenance,  a  man  of  indefatigable  action  under  a 
paternal  aspect. 

It  is  true  that  by  nature  I  possess  a  bodily  slowness, 
which  may  perhaps  deceive  even  the  most  perspicacious 
persons.  On  the  other  hand,  I  have  a  Jlair,  which,  in 
spite  of  my  temperament,  excites  my  energy  and  has 
rarely  deceived  me  in  my  hunts  for  men,  A  thief  or 
a  murderer,  whom  the  Prefecture  points  out  to  me, 
becomes  a  prey  of  which  I  sometimes  instantly  divine 
the  trail ;  the  faintest  indication  of  his  passage  endows 
me  often  with  a  species  of  "  second-sight."  I  do  not 
wish  to  make  a  parade  of  my  merits ;  but  if,  from  the 
faintest  indication,  the  most  insignificant  fact,  I  have 
often  established  a  whole  world  of  proofs  and  revela- 


46  MEMOIRS   OF 

tions,  I  owe  such  merits  to  a  natural  gift,  a  wholly 
special  organization.  I  was  born  a  policeman  as  a 
greyhound  is  born  to  course.  I  can  no  more  explain 
what  put  me  on  the  trail  of  Tropmann  than  we  can 
explain  ihtjlair  of  the  hounds  for  a  wild  animal.  Once 
at  work,  I  did  not  possess  myself  or  my  object;  my 
object  possessed  me.  It  was  not  till  my  work  was 
accomplished,  no  matter  what  period  of  time  it  took, 
that  I  felt  fatigue  and  exhaustion.  Once  back  in  or- 
dinary life  my  ardour  was  at  an  end ;  I  forgot  it ; 
I  became  once  more  a  rather  benignant  being,  whose 
only  desire  was  to  rest  and  talk  of  other  things  than 
the  cares  of  his  profession. 

As  clerk  of  the  court,  I  wrote  down  very  many  of  the 
causes  celebres  of  Louis-Philippe's  time,  which  I  shall 
not  quote  here  because  I  was,  after  all,  only  their  steno- 
grapher. Looking  back,  I  see  plainly  that  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end  of  the  reign  of  the  Citizen- King 
resembled  in  many  of  its  facts  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  the  reign  of  Napoleon  III.  Revolts  signalized 
the  first  years  of  th^  juste  milieu  ;  a  great  crime  assisted 
in  bringing  about  its  end  —  a  clap  of  thunder,  a  stroke 
of  lightning  overturned  two  thrones.  The  crime  of  the 
Due  de  Choiseul-Praslin  was  a  warning  of  the  fall  of 
Louis-Philippe ;  and  the  crime  of  Tropmann  was 
equally  a  warning  of  the  fall  of  Napoleon  III. 

When  the  revolution  of  1848  broke  out,  many  of  the 
men  then  raised  to  power  I  had  known  in  the  criminal 
courts  when  taking  their  depositions,  and  making  out 
^€\i  proces  verbaux.    In  spite  of  my  aversion  to  politics 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  47 

my  career  was  very  nearly  ruined  in  1848  by  the  ran- 
cour of  the  Republicans,  who  could  not  forgive  me  for 
having  done  my  duty  under  the  monarchy  they  had 
just  overthrown.  If  I  renewed,  not  very  long  after, 
my  career  at  the  point  where,  as  I  shall  presently  show, 
I  was  forced  to  leave  it  in  1848,  I  owe  it  to  my  con- 
stant protector,  M.  de  L ,  who  rose  to  a  pinnacle 

of  power  as  soon  as  the  Napoleonic  aurora  dawned 
for  his  prince. 

Yet  that  which  made  my  fortune  shortly  after  1848 
nearly  cost  me  my  life  when  I  became,  under  the  Com- 
mune, a  prisoner  in  the  hands  of  the  enemies  of  the 
Empire.  At  the  beginning  of  the  latter  reign  I  was 
taxed  with  Orleanism,  and  under  the  Commune  I 
came  near  being  shot  because  I  was  tainted  with 
Bonapartism ! 

From  Paris  to  Japan,  from  Japan  to  Rome,  the  most 
idiotic  situation  for  a  French  citizen  is  that  of  being 
a  public  functionary.  Though  our  administration  is  one 
of  the  fine  triumphs  that  Europe  envies,  it  does  not 
guarantee  to  protect  the  future  of  the  greatest  or  the 
humblest  of  its  representatives.  I  had  hardly  been 
two  months  commissary  of  police  at  Passy  when  the 
revolution  of  1848  broke  out.  I,  who  had  accepted 
this  post  and  this  retreat  in  what  was  then  a  tranquil 
village,  hoping  that  after  nearly  twenty  years  of  toil  in 
the  criminal  courts  I  might  win  my  last  spurs  as  a  civil 
officer,  was  brutally  forced  from  my  position.  Because 
I  belonged  to  the  administrative  hierarchy  of  a  govern- 
ment, the  adversaries  of  which  had  no  conception  that 


48  MEMOIRS   OF 

its  end  was  so  near,  my  career  was  destroyed !  I  was 
cast  out  by  a  society  I  had  loyally  served  in  the  duties 
it  had  placed  upon  me,  solely  because  a  fatal  hour  had 
struck  for  its  monarch.  I  was  condemned  because 
Providence  had  stamped  with  reprobation  a  crowned 
family  which  up  to  that  hour  had  considered  itself 
under  divine  protection. 

Yet  it  was  easy  to  foresee  in  1847  that  a  terrible 
moment  was  approaching  for  the  omnipotent  bourgeois 
class.  If  I  had  not  lived  in  a  world  of  criminals,  which 
prevented  me  from  watching  the  abnormal  movements 
of  society  under  Louis-Philippe,  I  should  have  fore- 
seen the  social  convulsion  that  now  swept  me  off 
my  feet. 

Since  the  death  of  his  sister,  the  Princess  Adelaide, 
the  King,  deprived  of  his  Egeria,  was  but  the  shadow 
of  himself.  The  terrible  warning  given  to  him  by  the 
death  of  his  eldest  son  was  renewed  and  deepened  by 
the  death  of  his  lifelong  adviser  and  support.  Isolated 
on  his  throne,  surrounded  by  ambitious  men  whose 
interest  it  was  to  make  it  totter,  Louis-Philippe  felt 
the  danger  that  came  from  "  the  street"  and  the  "  fau- 
bourgs," without  finding  in  the  aristocratic  and  finan- 
cial salons  (who  were  secretly  conspiring  with  "the 
street  ")  the  safety  he  implored. 

France  had  reached  the  crucial  movement  that  par- 
ties seem  regularly  to  produce  every  eighteen  years, 
a  period  when  all  appears  to  waver,  to  undergo  a  mys- 
terious change  in  the  physical  as  well  as  in  the  moral 
order;  when  the  seasons  themselves  bring  misery  to 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  49 

the  poor  —  that  weapon  which  ambitious  men,  seeking 
social  upheaval,  are  so  quick  to  use. 

Misery  below,  corruption  above,  the  shameful  crime 
of  the  deputy  Martin,  the  frightful  crime  of  the  Due  de 
Choiseul-Praslin,  crime  everywhere,  even  upon  the 
steps  of  the  throne,  warned  the  reign  of  Louis-Philippe 
in  1847  that  it  was  approaching  a  catastrophe.  Thrones 
and  crowns  are  ever  shattered  by  the  same  thunder- 
bolts; they  disappear  in  the  same  convulsions  that 
gave  birth  to  them.  The  scandals  that  marked  the  end 
of  Louis-Philippe's  reign  were,  like  the  murder  of  Vic- 
tor Noir  and  the  slaughters  of  Tropmann,  the  same 
thunder-claps  that  gave  warning  of  the  destruction  of 
the  Empire. 

It  is  within  the  bosom  of  balancing  powers  that  dis- 
cords are  produced  which  excite  the  defeated  to  obtain 
triumphs  that  may,  at  the  time,  avenge  public  opinion, 
but  do  not  secure  and  strengthen  society.  The  crime 
of  the  Due  de  Praslin  is  an  example  of  this.  Its  con- 
sequences, while  giving  to  the  country  an  apparent  proof 
of  the  respect  of  the  government  for  the  great  princi- 
ple of  equality  which  gave  it  birth  and  on  which  it 
rested,  led,  nevertheless,  to  the  overthrow  of  that  gov- 
ernment. 

This  abominable  crime  proved  that  disregard  of  duty 
at  the  summit  of  society  results  in  destroying  the  force 
and  the  prestige  of  the  grandeur  of  that  society, — 
although  it  must  be  said  that  it  brought  into  high 
relief  the  sublime  virtues  of  the  illustrious  victim, 
the  daughter  of  Marechal   Sebastiani,  the  Duchesse 


50  MEMOIRS   OF 

de  Choiseul-Praslin,  wife  of   the  chamberlain  of  the 
Duchesse  d'Orleans. 

I  was  still  a  clerk  at  the  Prefecture  when  the  mur- 
der of  the  duchess  shed  horror  throughout  Paris, 
mourning  into  the  King's  palace,  and  roused  implacable 
hatreds  that  were  slumbering  in  the  mind  of  parties.  A 
peer  of  France  the  murderer  of  his  wife!  What  a  piece 
of  luck  for  the  Opposition !  and  for  the  journalists  of 
the  Reforme,  the  Corsaire,  and  the  National.  The 
avengers  of  the  massacres  of  the  rue  Transnonain  and 
of  Lyons  could  never  have  hoped  for  such  a  scandal 
to  unite  with  their  political  animosities  the  partisans  of 
the  Republic,  the  sore-heads  at  Ghent,  and  all  the 
other  malcontents,  who,  for  eighteen  years,  had  been 
paying  with  their  liberty  in  Sainte-Pelagie  for  the  right 
of  protesting  against  an  order  of  things  that  was 
neither  legitimate  monarchy  nor  republicanism ! 

The  crime  itself,  which  dishonoured  the  peerage,  was 
horrible.  When  we  were  summoned,  on  the  morning 
of  August  1 8,  1847,  to  the  hotel  Sebastiani  in  the 
faubourg  Saint-Honore,  for  a  first  inquest  on  the  mu- 
tilated body  of  the  Duchesse  de  Praslin,  the  commis- 
saries of  police,  aided  by  physicians,  had  no  difficulty 
in  proving  that  a  long  and  bloody  struggle  had  taken 
place  between  the  Duke  and  his  unhappy  wife.  Like 
the  vulgarest  of  common  murderers,  he  had  entered 
his  wife's  room  to  kill  her  while  she  was  asleep.  She 
must  have  sprung  from  her  bed,  for  she  was  stabbed 
by  a  dagger  about  the  head,  on  the  wrists,  and  in  the 
back.    The  fingers   of  her  hands  were  cut  through 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  51 

in  her  helpless  efforts  to  ward  off  the  murderer's 
weapon. 

The  disorder  of  the  room,  and  furniture  stained 
with  blood,  left  no  doubt  whatever  as  to  the  frightful 
struggle  that  must  have  taken  place  between  the  hap- 
less victim  and  her  murderer,  who  was  placed  under 
surveillance  until  proper  steps  could  be  taken  for  the 
arrest  of  a  peer  of  France. 

But  what  inflamed  public  opinion  still  further  took 
place  three  days  later,  when  the  Duke,  issuing  from  one 
of  the  first  families  of  France,  the  murderer  of  his  wife 
from  infatuation  for  a  governess,  was  enabled  by  royal 
condescension  to  escape  the  doom  that  awaited  him. 
Those  who  had  expected  to  see  him  die  upon  the  scaf- 
fold were  outraged  when  the  Duke,  judged  by  his  peers 
(another  grievance  to  the  enemies  of  the  throne),  was 
brought  in  a  dying  condition  before  their  bar.  At  the 
moment  when  the  presiding  peer  urged  the  guilty  man 
to  make  a  full  confession  he  fell  unconscious.  The 
physicians  declared  that  he  was  poisoned,  and  he  died 
that  evening  in  prison. 

The  chemical  analysis  of  Orfila  showed  the  presence 
of  arsenic  in  the  Duke's  body.  But  the  conclusions  of 
that  great  chemist  (as  shown  in  the  case  of  Mme.  La- 
farge)  were  rather  elastic.  It  was  certainly  strange 
that  the  Duke's  death  was  speedy,  while  that  of 
M.  Lafarge  was  slow  from  the  same  poison.  Raspail, 
the  political  and  scientific  enemy  of  Orfila,  did  not 
fail  to  call  attention  to  this  inconsistency  of  the 
noted  chemist. 


52  MEMOIRS   OF 

In  vain  did  the  Chamber  of  Peers  say  in  its  report 
(drawn  up  in  secret  session)  that  the  Due  de  Praslin 
had  judged  and  condemned  himself;  the  newspapers 
did  not  hesitate  to  say  that  it  was  not  thus  such  a  villain 
should  have  ended ;  and  that  if  the  examination  begun 
by  the  ordinary  judges  had  not  been  purposely  trans- 
ferred to  the  Court  of  Peers,  the  murderer  would  not 
have  escaped  legal  justice.  Some  papers  went  much 
farther,  and  asserted  that  the  Due  de  Praslin  was  not 
dead,  but  had  been  sent  to  England  by  the  authorities. 
Long  afterwards,  persons  declared  that  they  had  seen 
him  in  England  and  in  Switzerland.  The  rumour  was 
current  from  the  day  of  his  trial,  and  a  large  force  of 
police  was  required  to  keep  back  the  crowd  around  the 
hearse,  who  threatened  to  break  open  the  coffin,  which 
the  populace  declared  contained  no  body. 

This  ferment  of  the  Parisian  population  gave  warn- 
ing that  a  crisis  was  approaching.  From  that  day  the 
Societ'e  des  Droits  de  V Homme  [of  the  Rights  of  Man] 
re-formed  its  sections.  They  enveloped  Paris  in  a  secret 
net.  Clement  Thomas,  a  former  sub-officer  of  the  cuiras- 
siers, was  appointed  to  drill  their  troops,  the  citizens 
Baune,  Charassin,  Jules  Favre,  Charles  Lagrange,  shared 
with  Clement  Thomas  the  management  of  these  sec- 
tions of  the  "  Rights  of  Man."  The  National,  edited 
by  Armand  Marrast,  the  Reforme,  edited  by  Ledru- 
Rollin,  never  ceased,  under  orders  from  the  secret 
revolutionary  committees,  to  wave,  like  a  threat,  the 
bloody  robe  of  the  victim  of  a  peer  of  France.  They 
printed  her  letters  to  the  Duke  (produced  at  the  brief 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  53 

trial)  in  a  cheap  pamphlet,  which  was  sold  about  the 
streets  for  a  few  sous. 

When  M.  Thiers,  jealous  of  M.  Guizot,  when  La- 
martine,  with  his  "  Girondins,"  caused  the  revolt  which 
was  provoked  by  the  banquets  in  honour  of  electoral 
reform,  it  was  Armand  Marrast,  Ledru-Rollin,  and 
their  former  soldiers  of  1830,  who  turned  that  revolt 
into  a  revolution  —  which  amazed  and  dumbfounded 
the  very  men  who  had  prepared  it,  namely :  Thiers  and 
Odilon  Barrot. 

The  bourgeoisie,  as  much  fooled  as  their  ambitious 
leaders,  looked  about  them  for  a  haven  into  w^hich 
they  might  escape  from  a  turbulent  and  bloody  sea. 
Then  it  was  that  Prince  Louis  Bonaparte  came  from 
London  to  support  the  men  in  power,  whom  he  pre- 
sently fooled  in  their  turn,  as  they  had  fooled  Thiers 
and  Odilon  Barrot,  Lamartine  and  Cavaignac !  Perjury 
and  baited  traps  gave  France  a  short  period  of  repose. 
But  she  paid  dearly  for  it. 

These  reflections  would  be  presumptuous  from  the 
pen  of  a  simple  police  officer  if  I  had  not  been  called 
upon  by  my  official  duty  to  follow  the  actions  of  the 
secret  societies,  whose  reports  and  bulletins  came  daily 
to  the  Prefecture  of  Police,  thanks  to  its  secret  agent,  the 
too-celebrated  Lucien  de  La  Hode.  Until,  and  through, 
the  year  1848,  the  press  of  the  "  Rights  of  Man,"  which 
printed  those  reports  and  bulletins,  delivered  them 
secretly  to  the  police,  by  the  hands  of  its  "  secretary," 
Lucien  de  La  Hode,  before  sending  them  to  its  adher- 
ents! 


54  MEMOIRS   OF 

From  its  outset,  the  Republic  considered  my  past 
services  a  crime,  because  (as  I  may  show  later)  the 
magistracy  had  caused  me  to  strike,  under  Louis- 
Philippe,  guilty  men,  who,  under  the  new  Republic, 
became  heroes.  Yet  it  was  to  the  revolution  of  Febru- 
ary that  I  owe  a  new  existence  which  I  did  not  solicit, 
and  a  doubtful  celebrity  which  I  never  sought.  Had  it 
not  been  for  that  revolution  which  turned  me  out  of 
my  post  as  commissary,  I  should  not  have  been  the 
vigilant  sleuth-hound  of  the  greatest  criminals  of  the 
Second  Empire;  I  should  never  have  mingled  in  its 
dramas;  of  the  mysteries  of  which  the  assize  courts 
allowed  but  a  small  portion  to  transpire. 

Two  days  after  the  proclamation  of  the  Republic, 

February  27,  1848,  the  citizen  D entered  my  office. 

In  the  name  of  the  Republic  and  of  the  new  Prefect 
of  police,  he  presented  me  with  an  order  from  the 
"  citizen  Caussidiere,"  the  Prefect,  to  give  up  my  post 
within  twenty-four  hours  to  the  bearer  of  the  order. 
The  order  was  formal  and  regular,  and  it  was  counter- 
signed by  a  member  of  the  new  government.  I  bowed 
before  its  decree.  My  successor  instantly  planted  him- 
self in  my  office  without  allowing  me  to  remove  my 
belongings,  because,  he  said,  the  furniture  was  the 
property  of  the  Administration.  Before  leaving,  well- 
nigh  as  naked  as  a  little  Saint-John,  I  asked  my  suc- 
cessor to  employ  my  secretary,  whose  plight,  poor 
fellow,  was  even  worse  than  mine. 

"  No,"  replied  the  savage  D ,  "we  mean  to  make 

a  clean  sweep;  we  want  nothing  left  of  the  tyrant." 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  55 

"  Except  the  furniture,"  I  remarked  as  I  departed. 

Thus  I  was  cast  out  of  an  administration  I  had  loy- 
ally served  solely  because  the  head  of  the  government 
had  fallen.  There  are  moments  in  life,  for  individuals 
as  well  as  for  societies,  when  all  is  decadence  and  ruin  ; 
when  the  safest  precautions  of  human  wisdom  give 
way  beneath  us  like  the  foundations  of  a  house.  It  was 
at  the  moment  when,  after  nearly  twenty  years  of  faith- 
ful work,  I  hoped  and  expected  to  end  my  career  hon- 
ourably at  Passy,  that  this  cataclysm,  to  which  I  was 
a  total  stranger,  befel  me.  When  I  found  myself  thus 
brutally  cast  out,  as  it  were,  upon  the  pavement,  I  felt 
as  bewildered  as  I  was  despairing.  I  had  a  family.  On 
the  morrow  my  family  would  be  without  a  home  and 
without  bread. 

My  situation  was  desperate ;  to  whom  could  I  turn  ? 
where  could  I  go  ?  M.  Delessert,  my  Prefect,  was  either 
in  hiding  or  had  fled ;  to  appeal  to  his  successor,  citizen 
Caussidiere,  was  putting  myself  into  the  jaws  of  the 
wolf.  After  mature  deliberation,  a  thought  came  to 
me,  which  ought  to  have  come  and  would  have  come 
to  me  at  once  if  I  had  not  been  so  confused  by  the 

way  in  which  citizen  D had  driven  me  from  my 

office  and  seized  my  place  and  my  furniture.  I  went  to 
my  protector,  M.  de  L . 

I  found  him  as  gay  and  exultant  as  I  was  sad  and 
sorrowful. 

"  At  last !  "  he  cried,  flinging  himself  into  my  arms ; 
**  at  last,  my  dear  Claude,  we  have  done  with  that  reign 
of  corruption.     Louis-Philippe  is  down  for  ever,  with 


56  MEMOIRS   OF 

his  Guizot — a  hermaphrodite  royalist,  like  all  those 
Orleans !  Well,  it  is  over !  This  time  it  did  not  take 
long  to  do,  for  the  tree  was  rotten  —  rotten  to  the 
core ! " 

I  looked  at  M.  de  L in   consternation;  and  I 

could  not  help  saying  to  him,  like  Caesar,  — 

"Whatljv^^,  too?" 

Then,  looking  at  him  a  little  closer,  I  saw  that  his 
clothes  were  sordid,  and  that  he,  so  dainty  in  his  hab- 
its, had  a  dirty  face,  and  hands  still  dirtier. 

"How?  what?"  I  asked,  "do  you  belong  to  the 
revolution?  are  you  conspiring?" 

"Why,  of  course,"  he  exclaimed,  shrugging  his 
shoulders;  "and  if  you  never  guessed  it  when  I 
roamed  the  streets  of  Paris  in  quest  of  adventures,  it 
is  because  I  pulled  the  wool  over  your  eyes." 

"  Ah  !  "  I  exclaimed  reproachfully ;  "  you  exposed  me 
cruelly." 

"  Not  at  all,  my  dear  Claude,"  he  answered  joyously ; 
"  don't  you  remember  that  I  told  you  a  few  months  ago 
that  the  government  could  n't  last  six  months  ?  As  I 
said  it  I  was  thinking  of  a  place  for  you,  in  the  future, 
far  better  than  the  one  you  '^had  under  a  bastard  gov- 
ernment, as  stingy  of  favours  as  it  was  lavish  of  promises." 

"  Well,  then,"  I  said,  promptly,  "  call  up  that  future 


now." 


"  Oh  ! "  he  said,  laughing,  "  you  are  in  too  great  a 
hurry.  Let  us  get  rid  of  the  Republic  first,  just  as  we 
have  now  got  rid  of  the  monarchy." 

"  Hunger  cannot  wait,"  I  said  hastily. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  57 

M.  de  L became    serious,    and    asked   me   to 

explain  my  words. 

I  related  the  way  in  which  I  had  been  turned  out  of 
my  office  at  Passy  by  citizen  D . 

"  Bravo !  "  he  cried,  clapping  his  hands.  "  Bravo ! 
those  Republicans  are  piling  up  a  morrow  of  terrible 
hatreds.  Bravo !  "  he  exclaimed  again, "  you,  commissary, 
dismissed  by  the  Republic,  in  future  you  are  one  of  us  ! 
You  know  very  well  that  France,  which  has  just  pulled 
down  a  king,  will  never  set  him  up  again ;  hence  the 
Prince  must  reign  ;  he  will  be  carried  to  the  throne 
on  the  bucklers  of  the  malcontents.  You  are  one  of  us, 
I  tell  you,  for  you  have  the  past  and  the  present  against 
you.  You  have  no  longer  any  choice.  You  belong  to 
us  —  that  is  to  say,  you  belong  to  the  Prince,  who,  from 
this  day  forth  becomes  the  safety,  the  fortune,  the 
future  of  France  !  " 

"  No,"  I  objected,  "  I  belong  to  the  fallen  monarchy 
from  duty  and  from  gratitude." 

"  And  from  duty,  from  gratitude,  do  you  mean  to  let 
yourself  die  of  hunger,  you  and  your  family  ?  It  is  not 
for  ^^a^  that  I  have  watched  over  your  career.  I  have 
studied  you.  Before  long,  I  shall  be  able  to  utilize  your 
capacities,  as  an  imbecile  administration,  which  could 
not  comprehend  you,  has  never  done." 

"  You  are  very  kind,"  I  said ;  "  but  if  until  then  I  have 
no  bread  to  feed  my  family,  what  can  I  do  and  what 
can  you  do  with  my  capacities  ?  " 

"  Do  you  suppose,"  he  said,  "  that  I  have  not  thought 
of  that,  now  that  you  have  owned  to  me  your  distress  ? 


58  MEMOIRS   OF 

Do  you  think  that  I  have  no  memory  and  no  grati- 
tude ?  Am  I  likely  to  forget  how  you  saved  my  life,  and 

that  of  Mme.  X ,  from  those  wretches  at  the  Tro- 

cadero  ?  Until  the  prospects  of  my  Prince  are  secure, 
through  the  follies  of  these  Republicans,  you  will  live 
in  my  house  and  dine  with  me,  you  and  your  family." ' 

"  Pardon  me,"  I  replied,  with  emotions  of  gratitude 
and  dignity  struggling  within  me,  "  I  cannot  accept 
services  I  cannot  return." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  Do  you  prefer  to  die  for  the 
Republic  which  does  n't  want  you  ?  That  is  too  silly. 
Let  yourself  be  managed  now,  and  later  you  will  have 
only  to  choose  the  place  you  desire  to  fill.  If  you  wish  to 
pay  your  debt  to  me  at  once,  I  '11  offer  you  the  means." 

"  How  ? " 

"  By  becoming  my  secretary." 

"  Become  the  secretary  of  a  conspirator !  I,  a  com- 
missary of  police ! " 

*'  How  foolish  you  are  !  "  he  exclaimed.  "  Am  I  a  con- 
spirator now  that  the  government  against  which  I  acted 
no  longer  exists  ?  Am  I  not,  in  my  role  of  revolution- 
ist, a  good,  pure,  true  democrat  ?  By  employing  you, 
I,  *  one  of  the  pure,'  do  you  a  service  —  I  whitewash 
you." 

»  Mme.  X was  a  woman  of  society,  as  much  concerned  for  the 

interests  of  the  Prince  as  M.  de  L .  She  was  one  of  his  most  trusted 

spies.  With  M.  de  L ,  she  was  inveigled  into  a  house  near  the  Tro- 

cadero,  where  they  were  robbed,  and  would  have  been  murdered  if 
M.  Claude  had  not  received  notice  of  their  whereabouts.  The  Trocadero 
being  in  the  Passy  Precinct,  he  came,  with  the  police  of  his  post,  in  time 
to  rescue  them. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  59 

"  Ah  !  "  I  said,  doubtfully;  "  you  may  whitewash  me 
in  public  opinion,  but  I  shall  blacken  myself  in  my 
own  eyes,  inasmuch  as  you  have  just  owned  to  me  that 
the  Republic  is  only  a  bridge  to  cross  to  the  Empire." 

"What  next!"  cried   M.  de   L angrily.   "  O, 

these  honest  men ! "  he  added,  walking  excitedly  up 
and  down.  "  They  are  full  of  such  absurd  scruples ! 
They  want  to  make  society  in  their  own  image ;  as  if 
a  corrupt  society  like  ours  does  n't  require  to  be  tricked. 
Well,  well,  I  won't  employ  you  in  my  correspondence 
with  the  Prince ;  I  will  utilize  you,  till  I  get  you  an  em- 
ployment worthy  of  you,  on  my  other  correspondence ; 
and  I'll  warrant  that  will  give  you,  rabid  Cato  that 
you  are,  a  rough  job." 

I  accepted  the  provisional  function  because  I  could 
not  refuse  it  under  pain  of  starving  to  death.  Thus  it 
was  that  I  suffered  the  fatal  consequences  of  the  fall  of 
a  monarchy  which  could  no  longer  feed  me.  I  became, 
under  the  guidance  of  the  friend  of  Prince  Louis  Bona- 
parte, and  in  spite  of  myself,  an  agent  of  the  Napoleonic 
party. 

During  my  stay  in  M.  de  L 's  house,  I  made 

many  interesting  acquaintances,  for  he  was  much  sought 
by  persons  of  all  classes  — of  rank,  of  letters,  of  science, 
etc.  It  was  there  that  I  knew  the  great  toxicologist, 
Orfila  (born  on  the  island  of  Minorca  in  1787).  I  often 
accompanied  M.  de  L to  his  house,  hotel  du  Bar- 
rail,  where  he  received,  every  Saturday,  the  elite  of 
intellect  and  art,  and  the  celebrities  of  the  Operas, 
together  with  musical  composers  then  in  vogue.  From 


6o  MEMOIRS   OF 

M.  Orfila  I  heard  on  what  a  thread  the  condemnations 
of  Mme.  Lafarge  had  hung. 

"  If  Raspail,  my  antagonist,"  he  said,  "  had  reached 
Tulle  twenty-four  hours  earlier,  Mme.  Lafarge  would 
have  been  saved." 

"  Why }  "  I  asked ;  "  were  you  not  sure  of  your  ana- 
lysis ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  was,"  he  replied,  "  but  science  played  a  sec- 
ondary part  in  that  trial,  the  conclusions  of  which  were 
inspired  by  the  very  worst  passions.  The  bourgeoisie  of 
Tulle  made  it  a  town  affair.  They  first  turned  wholly 
to  the  side  of  the  mother-in-law.  As  soon  as  I  made 
known  my  analysis  the  population  divided  in  opinion. 
If  Raspail,  the  adversary  of  official  science  and  of  the 
government,  had  arrived  in  time  to  combat  me,  he 
would  have  been  the  leader  of  public  opinion ;  he  would 
have  saved  Mme.  Lafarge.  But  he  came  after  the  ver- 
dict was  rendered.  The  court  could  not  reverse  its 
judgement,  nor  seem  to  yield  to  a  rebellious  citizen  and 
savant.  His  tardy  evidence  only  did  harm  to  Mme. 
Lafarge." 

"  Then  do  you  deny  that  poison  was  administered  by 
Mme.  Lafarge  ? " 

"  I  do  not  deny  the  poison,  for  my  report  proved  its 
existence ;  but  I  still  doubt  who  was  the  person  who 
administered  it." 

"  Then  what  caused  the  court  to  be  so  severe  upon 
Mme.  Lafarge  ? " 

"  Politics,"  he  replied.  "  Between  me,  Orfila,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Council   of  Chemistry,  and   Raspail,  its 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  6i 

opponent,  Mme.  Lafarge  was  between  hammer  and 
anvil",  and  she  was  crushed!  Even  if  a  revolution 
should  release  her,  she  will  come  out  mutilated  and 
dying." 

Twelve  years  after  her  condemnation,  during  the 
revolution  of  1848,  Mme.  Lafarge  was  transferred  from 
her  prison  to  a  hospital.  In  1852  she  was  pardoned  by 
Louis  Napoleon  and  set  at  liberty;  but  Orfila  was 
right :  she  died  the  same  year  at  the  baths  of  Ussat. 

When  Orfila  died  (in  1853)  he  left  a  will  enjoining 
on  his  wife  to  keep,  during  her  life,  an  open  table 
every  Saturday  for  all  the  artists  in  Paris  who  had 
been  his  guests  and  comrades.  Mme.  Orfila  executed  so 
faithfully,  to  the  letter,  these  last  wishes  of  her  husband, 
that  the  day  of  her  own  death  falling  on  a  Saturday 
she  gave  her  last  dinner  on  that  day,  and  her  last  sigh 
mingled  with  the  notes  of  Beethoven. 


CHAPTER    V 

THE  COUP  D'ETAT  AND  MY  VICTIMS 


I  WAS  caught  in  the  Napoleonic  machinery.  Alas! 
I  was  not  the  only  man  in  that  position.  But  the 
men  whom  my  function  as  commissary  of  police 
compelled  me  to  arrest  have  since  described  me  as  an 
agent  responsible  for  the  crime  of  December.  Alas!  I 
was  only  an  instrument  by  which  my  masters  violated 
the  law.  The  Legitimists,  the  Orleanists,  who  expiated 
their  errors  in  the  Mazas  prison,  were  far  more  respon- 
sible than  I  for  that  crime,  because  it  was  they  who,  for 
their  own  ends,  had  helped  Louis  Napoleon  to  enter 
the  Elysee.  For  my  part,  I  came  very  near  sacrificing 
my  career  (as  I  shall  presently  show)  for  the  protection 
of  one  of  them.  If  I  was  compelled  to  be  one  of  the 
active  agents  of  the  Coup  d'Etat^  I  acted  in  it  accord- 
ing to  my  conscience. 

The  men  really  guilty  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  were  the 
accomplices  who  demolished,  piece  by  piece,  the  edifice 
of  the  government  of  1848,  men  who  had  a  secret 
understanding  with  Prince  Louis  and  his  followers  to 
kill  the  Republic ;  a  compact  that  lasted  until  the  day 
when  one  set  was  able  to  rid  itself  of  the  others  by  in- 
carcerating them.    M.  de  L first  opened  my  eyes 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  63 

to  the  proceedings  of  his  eternal  conspirator.  It  was 
but  a  few  months  after  the  revolution  of  February,  1848, 
that  I  knew  the  hand  that  was  directing  the  riots. 

The  "  reaction  "  once  accomplished,  as  M.  de  L 

had  foretold,  I  was  restored  to  my  post  as  commissary 
of  police.  I  resumed  my  place  after  the  affair  of 
May  31,  during  which  Ledru-Rollin,  one  of  the  au- 
thors of  the  fall  of  the  monarchy,  was  sacrificed  to  his 
enemies.  I  myself  felt,  as  I  was  bandied  about,  first  as 
commissary  of  the  Menilmontant  quarter,  then  com- 
missary at  the  Batignolles,  then  re-commissary  of  the 
Saint-Martin  quarter,  the  flux  and  reflux  of  the  revolu- 
tionary currents,  set  in  motion  by  the  conspirator  in 
London. 

Each  time  that  some  serious  event  occurred,  pro- 
duced by  the  Napoleonic  phalanx,  its  agents  were 
changed  from  place  to  place,  lest  they  should  suspect 
the  bonds  that  secretly  attached  them  to  the  Prince. 
For  instance :  On  the  breaking-up  of  the  national  work- 
shops, caused  by  the  June  affair  [1848],  I  was  record- 
ing in  my  proces-verbaux  that  certain  insurgents  who 
had  been  killed  at  the  barricades  had  in  their  pockets 
gold  sovereigns  bearing  the  effigy  of  the  Queen  of 
England.  Scarcely  had  I  begun  this  inquest  on  the 
victims  of  June  than  I  was  sent  to  another  post,  that 
of  the  Batignolles.  My  inquiry  stopped  there.  My  suc- 
cessor took  good  care  not  to  continue  it,  and  not  to 
inquire  what  bond  united  the  director  of  the  national 
workshops,  M.  Emile  Thomas  (who  was  abducted  June 
24),  with  the  Napoleonic  party. 


64  MEMOIRS   OF 

The  abduction  of  Emile  Thomas  and  the  assassina- 
tion of  General  Brea,  the  two  darkest  facts  of  the  June 
affair,  can  be  laid  only  to  the  direct  action  of  the 
Prince's  party.  Thus  the  horrible  riot  of  June,  as  well 
as  the  ridiculous  affair  of  May  15,  —  the  one  fatal  to 
Cavaignac,  the  other  fatal  to  Ledru-Rollin,  —  were  the 
first  milestones  that  marked  the  advance  of  the  noc- 
turnal hero  of  December. 

Louis  Napoleon  never  ceased  to  conspire  from  1831 
to  1873.  No  sooner  had  the  revolutionary  foam  carried 
him  into  the  Elysee  than  he  made  that  abode  (from 
December  20,  1848,  to  December  2,  185 1)  a  centre 
of  conspiracy  —  conspiracy  with  the  Legitimists  and 
Orleanists  against  the  Republic  and  the  Republicans ; 
conspiracy  with  the  Legitimists  against  the  Orleanists, 
during  which  both  parties  tried  to  reinforce  their  plots 
with  the  discontented  Republicans.  From  this  inextri- 
cable tangle  of  conspiracy  the  man  of  the  Elysee,  silent 
as  the  sphinx,  made  ready  to  issue  and  give  the  word 
when  the  moment  came  to  put  an  end  to  a  situation 
that  was  strained  to  the  utmost. 

The  Prince,  when  I  first  met  him  in  1831  at  the 
Lapin  Blanc,  was  then  conspiring  under  the  mask 
of  amusing  himself;  he  never  ceased  to  do  so.  On 
a  throne,  as  in  exile,  his  whole  life  was  passed  in  mach- 
inations to  deceive  his  enemies,  his  friends,  and  his 
accomplices.  Conspirator  in  1830,  in  the  Roman  States, 
where  his  brother  was  mysteriously  killed  beside  him ; 
conspirator  in  1831,  when,  lodging  at  the  hotel  du 
Rhin  with  his   mother,  he  brought  veterans   of   the 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  65 

Grand  Army  to  their  death  beneath  the  column  of 
Vendome  to  make  them  shout:  Vive  rEmpereur! 
conspirator  at  Strasbourg  and  Boulogne  (facts  too  well 
known  to  be  more  than  mentioned  here) ;  conspirator 
in  1848,  after  conspiring  for  years  in  London,  in  slums 
and  gambling-houses,  at  the  expense  of  his  mistress, 
Miss  Howard ;  conspirator  when  he  offered  his  services 
to  the  government  of  the  Republic,  which  accepted 
them ;  conspirator  under  the  dictatorship  of  Lamartine, 
who  divined  him,  and  sent  him  flying  by  one  energetic 
word;  after  which,  however,  he  inundated  the  five 
departments  with  agents  and  circulars  that  won  him 
a  seat  in  the  Constituent  Assembly. 

He  was  in  Paris  with  the  leaders  of  the  national 
workshops  against  the  army;  he  put  obstacles  (by 
means  of  the  prefects  and  generals  he  had  won  over  to 
the  Napoleonic  cause)  to  the  coming  of  the  provincial 
national  guards,  who  desired  to  march  to  the  deliver- 
ance of  the  capital. 

Later,  as  President  of  the  Republic,  he  completed 
his  work  on  the  2d  of  December.  I  shall  relate  in  a 
very  brief  way  the  events  of  the  Coup  d'Etat  in  which 
I  played  a  secondary  part ;  I  shall  dwell  on  one  corner 
only  of  the  picture,  in  which  I  followed  the  advice  of 
one  of  its  most  illustrious  victims,  M.  Thiers,  who  him- 
self had  been  the  dupe  of  the  great  conspirator. 

Everybody  knows  that  to  mask  the  Coup  d'Etat  the 
Prince-President  gave  a  concert  at  the  Elysee  on  the 
evening  of  December  i,  185 1,  to  which  he  invited  all  the 
most  illustrious  persons  in  Paris, — in  the  Assemblies, 


66  MEMOIRS   OF 

in  science,  in  letters,  and  in  art.  The  composer,  Felicien 
David,  conducted  the  performance  of  his  Desert.  My 
Prefect,  M.  de  Maupas,  waited  in  the  President's  private 
office  till  the  concert  was  over,  in  order  to  receive  his 
instructions. 

The  chief  spirit  of  the  nocturnal  drama  about  to  be 
performed  was  at  the  Opera  Comique  in  order  to  allay 
suspicions.   A  lady  said  to  him : 

"  Monsieur  de  Morny,  is  it  true  that  they  are  going 
to  sweep  out  the  Chamber  ?  " 

"Madame,  I  don't  know  anything  about  it,"  he  re- 
plied; "  but  if  there  is  any  sweeping  to  be  done  I  shall 
try  to  be  on  the  side  of  the  broom-handle." 

At  midnight  M.  de  Morny  rejoined  his  accomplices 
at  the  Elysee.  The  concert  was  over ;  the  guests  had 
departed.  The  presidential  mansion  was  once  more  in 
darkness  and  solitude.  A  single  lamp  gleamed  in  the 
private  office  of  Louis  Napoleon.  It  stood  on  a  little 
table  beside  which  M.  de  Maupas  had  waited  a  full 
hour,  sitting  before  a  pile  of  placards  which,  before 
dawn,  were  to  cover  the  walls  of  Paris. 

Morny  was  the  last  to  enter  the  room.  He  took  his 
seat  between  Louis  Napoleon,  Saint-Arnaud  [Minister 
of  War],  and  de  Maupas  [Prefect  of  Police].  General 
Magnan  did  not  join  the  four  others  until  later,  and 
then  only  to  take  Saint-Arnaud's  orders. 

"  If  his  Excellency,  the  Minister  of  War,  will  give 
me  half  an  hour,  his  orders  shall  be  obeyed,"  he  said. 
The  orders  being  given  he  departed. 

The  decrees  were  then  signed,  and  Colonel  Beville, 


COMTE   DE    MORNY 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  67 

who  was  waiting  in  an  adjoining  room,  started  with 
them  for  the  National  Printing-Office,  where  a  com- 
pany of  soldiers  stood  over  the  printers,  one  to  each 
man,  until  they  had  printed  the  Proclamations,  which, 
in  one  night,  changed  the  whole  form  of  government. 

During  this  time  the  Prince,  who  had  sworn  to 
respect  and  maintain  the  Republic,  unlocked  a  cup- 
board and  took  from  it  four  packets,  bearing  the  names 
of  the  four  persons  present.  The  first,  addressed  to  the 
Due  de  Morny,  contained  500,000  francs ;  he  received 
it,  together  with  his  appointment  as  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  and  departed  to  take  possession  of  that 
post. 

The  second  packet,  addressed  to  Saint-Arnaud,  also 
contained  500,000  francs,  and  an  additional  50,000  for 
Colonel  Espinasse,  who,  during  the  night,  was  to 
introduce  a  battalion  of  soldiers  into  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies. 

The  third  packet,  addressed  to  M.  de  Maupas,  con- 
tained, with  money,  a  list  of  all  the  representatives, 
generals,  men  of  letters,  leaders  of  parties,  whom  he 
was  to  arrest  by  his  Corsicans,  among  whom,  by  special 
favour,  I  was  honourably  included. 

The  fourth  packet,  and  the  smallest,  was  intended  for 
the  police  of  the  filysee.  It  contained  only  100,000 
francs,  for  the  aide-de-camps,  employes,  spies,  and  agents 
who  posted  the  proclamations  printed  under  the  vigilant 
eye  of  the  soldiers. 

The  distribution  made  of  these  various  sums,  the 
Prince  dismissed  his  accomplices  and  awaited  in  silence 


6S  MEMOIRS   OF 

and  solitude  the  result  of  his  coup  de  Jarnac.  Smoking 
his  cigar  while  he  gambled  the  fate  of  France,  he  held 
himself  ready  to  cross  the  frontier  or  take  up  his  abode 
in  the  Tuileries. 

It  remains  a  singular  thing  that  this  conspirator  had 
so  muddled  mens'  minds  that  a  very  large  number  of 
Frenchmen  believed  that  France  was  saved  by  his  mon- 
strous usurpation.  The  Republicans  saw  themselves 
freed  from  the  reactionaries  of  the  rue  de  Poitiers;  the 
faubourg  Saint-Germain  felt  itself  delivered  from  its 
fear  of  the  faubourg  Saint-Antoine,  and  from  the  threats 
of  the  Red  Spectre.  But  the  very  next  night  the  secret 
societies,  from  which  the  elect  of  the  nation  had  issued, 
saw  themselves  fooled  —  too  late  ! 

On  the  afternoon  of  December  i,  185 1,  I  received 
an  anonymous  and  confidential  letter,  which  enjoined 
me  to  hold  myself  ready  in  case  of  an  attack  on  the 
President  of  the  Republic.  The  mysterious  writer  of 
the  letter  added  that,  knowing  my  very  favourable  senti- 
ments towards  the  Assembly,  he  advised  me  to  resign 
my  functions  if  I  felt  any  scruples  about  acting  in 
favour  of  "  the  Elect  of  the  Nation,  now  attacked  by  all 
parties." 

I  foresaw  another  downfall.  As  my  conduct  at  the 
Prefecture  had  been  irreproachable,  I  was  given  the 
opportunity  to  resign  before  a  charge  was  brought 
against  me,  and  a  Corsican  put  in  my  place. 

The  letter  perplexed  me  sorely.  Rumours  of  a  coup 
d'etat  were  in  the  air.  The  population  of  Paris  was 
uneasy,   agitated.   The  horizon   had  grown   dark;   a 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  69 

thunder-clap  was  everywhere  expected.  I  felt,  as  others 
did,  that  the  lightning  was  about  to  strike  me. 

But  I  possess  a  quality  that  my  functions  have  de- 
veloped—  that  of  disregarding  present  danger,  and 
looking  only  to  consequences.  Now  this  letter,  in 
threatening  me,  plainly  announced  some  great  danger 
for  the  adversaries  of  the  President,  against  whom 
I  was,  apparently,  given  an  opportunity  to  declare 
myself. 

I  thought  of  M.  Thiers,  who,  during  the  last  session, 
had  become  the  bitterest  enemy  of  the  President.  With 
the  fatal  letter  in  my  hand,  I  walked  up  and  down  my 
study,  less  anxious  for  my  own  fate  than  for  that  of 
this  leader  of  the  Prince's  adversaries.  I  asked  my- 
self, "  What  ought  I  to  do  ?  If  I  resign  my  functions 
my  career  is  ruined,  and  I  have  no  money.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  I  declare  against  my  former  benefactors, 
I  commit  an  act  of  ingratitude,  particularly  towards 
M.  Thiers." 

After  a  short  period  of  hesitation,  I  came  to  a  resolu- 
tion. I  determined  to  warn  M.  Thiers,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  explain  to  him  my  cruel  position.  I  went  at  once 
to  his  little  house  in  the  rue  Saint-Georges,  and  sent  in 
my  name.  I  was  received  by  the  former  Minister  and 
future  President  of  a  new  Republic  in  his  study. 

I  explained  the  object  of  my  visit  in  a  few  words 
(knowing  well  that  M.  Thiers  liked  better  to  hear  him- 
self talk  than  to  listen  to  others).  I  showed  him,  in 
support  of  my  words,  the  letter  I  had  received. 

"  My  dear  Claude,"  he  said,  in  his  high,  clear  voice, 


70  MEMOIRS   OF 

settling  his  spectacles  in  a  particular  way  he  had  when 
he  was  going  to  give  his  fixed  opinion  on  some  sub- 
ject, "  my  dear  friend,  a  commissary  of  police  is  a  sol- 
dier of  the  law.  He  should  never  reason  ;  he  must  only 
act.  If  you  receive  an  order  to  arrest  me  —  well,  then, 
you  must  arrest  me.  A  command,  of  whatever  nature 
it  is,  must  be  obeyed.  That  is  my  reply,  and  my  advice 
to  you." 

I  was  far  indeed  from  expecting  such  an  answer; 
yet  it  relieved  me  of  a  heavy  weight.  My  amazement 
was  so  visible  that  M.  Thiers  perceived  it,  and  he 
continued : 

"  In  coming  to  me,  you  wished,  did  you  not,  to  get 
yourself  out  of  a  great  embarrassment  .f^  Well,  I  take 
you  out  of  it.  If  to-morrow,  this  evening,  to-night,  you 
come  with  four  gendarmes,  and  take  me  by  the  collar, 
I  shall  remain  none  the  less  your  friend.  I  shall  see 
nothing  but  the  necessity  that  compels  you  to  be  my 
gaoler.  Soldier  of  the  magistracy,  you  can  have  no  other 
thought  but  to  obey  it.  And  now,  my  friend,  before 
pressing  your  hand  for  the  service  you  meant  to  render 
me,  permit  me  to  blame  you  for  not  keeping  to  your- 
self advice  that  came  undoubtedly  from  the  Prefecture." 

"  But,  Monsieur  Thiers,"  I  remarked,  "  the  advice 
is  anonymous." 

"  Well,  that  is  your  excuse,"  he  replied,  beginning  to 
walk  hurriedly  up  and  down,  as  he  always  did  when 
he  grew  heated  in  a  dialogue.  "  But  I  know  you,  my 
worthy  Claude;  if  that  letter  had  been  signed,  you 
would  have  committed  the  folly  of  sending  in  your 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  71 

resignation  rather  than  injure  me  or  betray  your  chiefs. 
I  tell  you  I  know  you.  And  now,"  he  added,  stopping 
abruptly,  "  let  us  talk  as  friends :  you  wall  arrest  me  — 
that 's  understood  —  and  I  shall  thank  you  for  so  doing." 

"  What ! "  I  exclaimed,  starting  up  with  amazement, 
"  you  will  thank  me,  Monsieur  Thiers  ?  " 

"  Most  assuredly,"  he  said,  with  that  strident  laugh 
I  knew  so  well  when  the  sarcastic  orator  wished  to  con- 
ceal his  anger.  "  I  am  beaten.  I  have  tossed  up,  heads 
or  tails,  and  brought  down  —  tails !  The  Prince  has 
won  ;  the  Empire  is  a  fact ;  I  told  the  Chamber  how  it 
would  be.  The  Chamber  had  but  two  ways  to  take  — 
either  to  join  hands  with  the  Prince,  or  to  rally  to  the 
regency.  It  did  neither.  It  contented  itself  with  vot- 
ing restrictive  laws  !  Now,  what  remains  for  us  to  do, 
us  conservatives  ?  — to  drop  into  objects  of  ridicule,  or 
be  poked  into  prison  !  " 

And  M.  Thiers,  as  he  said  the  last  words,  scurried 
up  and  down  as  fast  as  his  little  legs  would  take  him. 
Absorbed  in  the  gravity  of  the  events  my  letter  brought 
before  him,  it  was  evident  that  the  ambitious  diplomat, 
tricked  by  the  dawning  Caesarism,  had  forgotten  me. 
I  made  answer  to  his  thought. 

"  Upon  my  word.  Monsieur  Thiers,  you  look  at  your 
critical  position  more  philosophically  than  I  should 
have  thought." 

"  Because,  my  dear  Claude,  I  am  a  politician.  You 
may  be  a  very  clever  commissary  of  police,  but  you 
will  never  be  a  politician  —  for  which  I  congratulate 
you !  —  Come,"  he  continued,  after  a  moment's  reflec- 


72  MEMOIRS    OF 

tion,  "  I  will  hide  nothing  from  you :  the  Prince,  by 
arresting  me,  will  do  me  a  very  great  service." 

"  I  don't  understand,"  I  said,  more  and  more  aston- 
ished. 

"  And  yet  it  is  very  simple !  "  he  cried,  shrugging  his 
shoulders,  and  beginning  to  trot  again.  "  If  Napoleon 
does  not  arrest  us  to-morrow,  we,  his  enemies,  will  be 
forced  to  act.  In  that  case,  we  put  worthy  men,  like 
yourself,  in  a  position  of  embarrassment.  Whereas,  in 
days  of  trouble  like  these,  to  imprison  party  men,  like 
me,  like  Cavaignac,  like  many  others,  preserves  them 
from  themselves ;  it  shelters  their  responsibility  to  their 
partisans ;  it  protects  our  persons,  and  yours,  from  a 
coalition  doomed  from  its  start  to  defeat  —  I  quote 
those  words  from  my  former  friend,  M.  de  Morny  him- 
self." 

"  Ah!  "  I  exclaimed,  wholly  confounded.  "  Ah  !  —  so 
then,  Monsieur  Thiers,  if  I  arrest  you  to-morrow,  by 
order  of  M.  de  Morny,  acting  for  the  Prince,  I  shall  do 
you  a  service  ? " 

"  A  very  great  one,  my  dear  Claude,"  he  answered, 
smiling,  "  a  very  great  one.  What  do  I  lack  that  the 
Prince  has  ?  —  prison,  martyrdom  !  His  imprisonment 
at  Ham  was  a  baptism ;  mine  might  be  a  redemption  ! 
If  you  knew,  as  I  do,  the  inside  of  politics,  as  you  know 
the  secret  things  of  the  Prefecture,  you  would  know 
that  darkness  reigns  there,  that  chance  is  the  great 
stake  of  conspirators.  In  1849,  Morny,  Changarnier, 
and  I  dreamed  of  a  coup  d'etat  to  save  France  from 
anarchy.     In  185 1,  Morny  is  against  Changarnier  and 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  73 

against  me,  to  save  France  from  anarchy  for  the  bene- 
fit of  his  brother  !  And  it  is  I  —  I  —  who,  in  their 
eyes,  become  an  insurgent,  an  anarchist !  Your  duty 
is  to  obey  your  chiefs  and  arrest  me,  if  they  order  you 
to  do  so,  until  the  day  when,  chief  in  my  turn,  I  will 
take  my  revenge  upon  your  Bonaparte.  On  that  day, 
my  dear  Claude,  I  will  avenge  you  for  the  dirty  work 
you  are  forced  to  do,  and  I  '11  avenge  myself !  Adieu, 
I  '11  await  you  ;  au  revoirr 

I  left  the  rue  Saint-Georges  wondering  at  the  mental 
resources  of  the  vigorous  little  man  who  took  upon 
himself  to  slam  the  prison-doors  on  his  own  nose  in 
order  to  have  the  satisfaction  of  breaking  through 
them.  As  for  me,  I  was  freed  from  all  shackles  in 
what  might  be  coming  upon  us. 

At  midnight  I  was  summoned,  with  all  the  other 
commissaries  of  Paris,  to  the  Prefecture  of  Police  and 
into  the  private  cabinet  of  M.  de  Maupas.  The  Prefect 
received  us  in  evening  dress.  He  had  not  had  time,  on 
leaving  the  Elysee  (as  I  have  already  related),  to  change 
his  clothes,  so  eager  was  he  to  give  us  our  instructions. 

"  A  conspiracy,"  he  said,  "  against  the  President  of 
the  Republic  is  on  the  point  of  breaking  out ;  we  know 
the  conspirators.  The  law  is  ready.  Here  are  your 
warrants  to  arrest  the  generals  Cavaignac,  Lamori- 
ciere,  Changarnier,  Le  Flo,  Colonel  Charras,  and  MM. 
Thiers  and  Baze." 

As  he  ended  these  words,  and  while  a  secretary 
handed  round  the  warrants,  M.  de  Maupas  came  to 
me,  who  was  standing  a  little  behind  my  colleagues, 


74  MEMOIRS   OF 

nearly  all  of  whom  were  strangers  to  me.  M.  de  Mau- 
pas  drew  me  a  little  aside  and  said,  in  a  low  voice : 

"  Have  you  reflected  ?  " 

I  knew  then  for  a  certainty  who  had  sent  me  that 
letter. 

"  I  shall  do  my  duty,"  I  answered,  bowing. 

I  saw  a  gesture  of  surprise  in  the  Prefect,  who  could 
not  keep  himself  from  adding : 

"  Then  your  duty  goes  before  your  affections  ?  " 

"I  have  a  post,  and  I  have  a  chief,"  I  answered; 
"  I  shall  be  faithful  to  my  post  and  obey  my  chief." 

"  You  are  a  worthy  man  and  a  good  citizen,"  he  said, 
walking  away  from  me. 

Then,  addressing  all  the  commissaries,  he  said, 
aloud : 

"  Messieurs,  all  these  arrests  must  be  made  before 
daylight." 

Every  one  knows  with  what  mysterious  rapidity,  with 
what  sureness  of  hand,  these  arrests  were  made ;  while, 
at  the  same  moment,  the  Chamber  was  invested,  and  its 
guardians,  together  with  General  Le  Flo,  commanding 
a  battalion  of  the  42d  of  the  line,  were  captured  and 
conveyed  to  prison. 

When  Paris  awoke  on  the  morning  of  December  2, 
the  Coup  d'Etat  was  an  accomplished  fact.  The  leaders 
of  the  party,  who  might  have  prevented  its  execution, 
were  in  the  prison  of  Mazas,  M.  Thiers  at  their  head. 

No  sooner  had  my  Prefect,  M.  de  Maupas,  spoken  to 
me  personally  in  his  cabinet  than  I  was  plainly  con- 
vinced that  the  confidence  with  which  he  honoured  me 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  75 

was  very  limited.  Furnished  with  my  warrant,  I  had 
not  made  twenty  steps  from  the  Prefecture  towards 
my  post  (where  I  was  told  to  await  further  orders)  than 
I  knew  I  was  being  dogged.  A  shadow  never  quitted 
mine.  I  pretended  not  to  see  it ;  but  when  I  reached 
the  other  bank  I  led  my  spy  into  a  strong  light,  which 
enabled  me  to  see  his  profile  out  of  the  corner  of  my 
eye.  By  his  squat  figure,  his  vulture  head,  his  bristling 
moustache,  I  recognized  a  Corsican;  truly,  I  was  well 
watched!  The  grasp  of  the  hand  and  the  flattering 
words  of  M.  de  Maupas  were  nothing  more  than  honey, 
covering  the  blade  of  the  dagger  that  walked  behind 
me. 

I  took  care  not  to  turn  in  the  direction  of  the  rue 
Saint-Georges.  Happily,  and  no  doubt  intentionally, 
my  warrant  indicated  another  duty  than  the  arrest  of 
M.  Thiers.  I  returned  to  my  office,  where  I  was  speedily 
joined  by  my  spy,  who  presented  himself  in  the  Prince's 
name,  and  gave  me  definite  orders  as  to  the  use  I  was 
expected  to  make  of  my  warrant. 

I  was  ordered  to  go  to  the  various  newspaper  offices 
in  my  precinct  and  seize  the  presses,  in  case  the  edit- 
ors, hearing  of  the  events  of  the  night,  should  print  an 
account  of  them  in  a  manner  hostile  to  the  President. 

As  for  the  "  right-thinking  "  newspapers  \^journaux 
bien  pensants],  I  was  to  explain  the  Coup  d'Etat  in 
a  manner  favourable  to  the  Prince;  and  I  was  also 
to  leave  a  certain  number  of  policemen  to  guard  the 
approach  to  these  printing-offices. 

This  action  was  followed  in  all  the  printing-offices 


76  MEMOIRS   OF 

in  Paris,  at  precisely  the  same  moment  at  which  the 
Legislative  Chamber  was  captured,  and  M.  Baze  and 
General  Le  Flo,  M.  Thiers,  and  Generals  Cavaignac, 
Bedeau,  and  the  rest  were  arrested  in  their  beds  by 
order  of  the  President  of  the  Republic  for  being  ardent 
Republicans!  Some  were  taken  to  Mazas;  others  to 
Ham  —  that  cradle  of  the  conspirator-prince,  who  now 
imprisoned  those  lovers  of  liberty  who  were  the  pri- 
mary means  of  getting  him  out  of  it ! 

My  lot  of  victims  in  the  raid  was  the  least  repugnant 
to  me.  They  were  merely  the  material  part  of  the  in- 
telligent world  —  now  put,  for  the  time  being,  under 
a  bushel.  The  next  morning  Paris  was  dumb.  None 
but  the  newspapers  sold  to  the  Elysee  said  a  word  of 
the  affair,  and  those  only  in  three  paragraphs  furnished 
by  the  future  Emperor. 

As  for  me,  servant  against  my  will  of  the  friends 
of  the  Elysian  Order,  I  thought  what  I  think  to-day : 
that  France  was  punished  because  she  had  trifled 
with  her  destiny;  because  her  faults  came  from  the 
fault  she  had  already  committed  in  1848.  Without 
the  fall  of  Louis-Philippe,  we  should  never  have  fallen 
into  the  hands  of  Lamartine,  a  poet  without  an  aim ;  of 
Cavaignac,  an  irresolute  general ;  of  Louis  Bonaparte, 
a  prince  without  principles. 

The  morning  of  December  2,  185 1,  will  never  be 
forgotten  by  those  who  walked  the  streets  of  Paris  as 
the  shops  were  opening,  and  knots  of  workmen,  going 
to  their  day's  labour,  were  grouped  about  the  Pro- 
clamations, mysteriously  posted  up  during  the  night, 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  77 

and  bearing  the  signatures  of  the  Prince-President,  De 
Morny,  Minister  of  the  Interior,  Saint-Arnaud,  Minis- 
ter of  War,  De  Maupas,  Prefect  of  Police.  What  did  it 
all  mean  ?  What  had  happened  ?  No  answer.  Paris  was 
struck  dumb ;  minds  and  tongues  were  paralyzed.  It 
was  useless  to  ask  questions  —  the  walls  alone  replied. 
Placards  were  everywhere.  One  threatened  death  to 
whoso  tore  it  down  ;  another  forbade  all  printers,  under 
heavy  penalties,  to  print  anything  not  authorized  by  the 
Government.  The  President's  Proclamation  declared: 
(i)  That  the  city  was  under  martial  law.  (2)  That  the 
Assembly  was  dissolved.  (3)  That  universal  suffrage 
was  established,  and  (most  significant  of  all)  that  a 
general  election  would  be  held  on  December  14. 

Presently  the  rumour  ran  that  two  hundred  and 
more  of  the  deputies  of  the  Chamber  had  been  arrested 
and  put  in  prison ;  among  them  many  of  the  most 
distinguished  men  in  France  —  Generals  Oudinot, 
Cavaignac,  Changarnier,  Le  Flo,  and  Lamoriciere;  also 
De  Tocqueville,  Sainte-Beuve,  Berryer,  Coquerel,  Jules 
de  Lasteyrie,  the  Due  de  Luynes,  the  Due  de  Broglie, 
and  last,  but  not  least,  Monsieur  Thiers. 

For  hours  it  was  impossible  to  form  an  opinion  of 
public  opinion.  But  as  the  day  wore  on,  it  dawned 
upon  the  minds  of  observers  that  the  most  audacious 
political  act  of  modern  history  was  likely  to  prove  ac- 
ceptable, for  a  time  at  least,  to  the  French  people. 
Thinking  men  alone  were  against  the  "  crime  " ;  and 
they,  or  their  leaders,  were  gagged  and  throttled.  But 
the  shopkeepers  began  to  scent  an  era  of  luxury.  The 


78     MEMOIRS   OF   MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

proletariat  and  the  populace,  caught  like  flies  in  the 
treacle  of  universal  suffrage,  were  throwing  up  their 
caps ;  while  the  provinces,  never  really  awakened  from 
the  Napoleonic  dream,  were  ready  to  welcome  the 
nephew  of  his  uncle  with  enthusiasm. 

Thus  the  Coup  d'Etat,  engineered  by  one  visionary, 
two  scoundrels,  and  three  tools,  and  resting  on  the 
ephemeral  emotions  of  the  French  people,  triumphed. 


CHAPTER   VI 

THE   POLICE   UNDER  THE   EMPIRE 


AFTER  the  Coup  d'Etat  the  first  care  of  the 
conqueror  of  France  was  to  put  her  under 
the  control  of  the  police.  To  this  solicitude 
of  Napoleon  III  (policeman  himself)  for  his  police, 
do  I  owe  my  rapid  rise.  If  my  backbone  had  been 
more  supple,  and  if  I  had  not  clung  exclusively  to  mu- 
nicipal affairs,  I  might  have  held  an  important  rank  at 
the  Chateau.  [The  "  Chateau  "  stands  throughout  for 
the  Emperor  and  his  surroundings.]   The  protection  of 

M.  de  L ,  now  become  senator,  opened  to  me  the 

way  to  fortune  and  to  honours. 

Without  pretending  to  be  a  Cato,  it  was  neverthe- 
less repugnant  to  me  to  go  against  my  conscience. 
While  respecting,  for  the  sake  of  public  security,  the 
man  who  called  himself  the  envoy  of  Providence  to 
save  good  men  and  make  evil  ones  tremble,  I  could 
not  forget  the  means  taken  to  carry  this  "saviour" 
from  the  filysee  to  the  Tuileries.  I  was  vastly  pleased, 
moreover,  when  I  saw  with  what  difficulty  the  "  Elect 
of  the  Nation  "  contrived  to  maintain  himself  amid  the 
accomplices  of  December,  —  insztiBhle parvenusy  shady 
henchmen,  whose  immorality  equalled  their  cupidity; 


8o  MEMOIRS   OF 

and  whose  triumph  could  not  save  them  from  con- 
tempt. 

At  this  period,  the  police  were  everywhere,  because 
the  secret  societies,  tricked  equally  with  legal  society, 
were  arming  under  the  orders  of  Mazzini ;  policemen 
were  in  the  army,  in  the  press,  among  the  bourgeoisie,  as 
well  as  among  the  lowest  Parisian  classes.  They  formed 
an  invisible,  but  indissoluble,  chain  which  led  from  the 
most  ignoble  dens  to  the  salons  of  the  Tuileries.  Bac- 
ciochi  and  Hyrvoix  —  the  former,  the  Emperor's  Le- 
bel,  the  latter,  mayor  of  his  palace  —  were  the  circu- 
lators of  His  Majesty's  secret  orders.  They  spread 
through  Paris  a  vast  crowd  of  spies,  both  men  and 
women,  whose  mission  it  was  to  discover  the  personal 
enemies  of  the  Empire. 

Mme.  X was  one  of  these  spies.     Like  many 

others,  she  had  not  awaited  the  Coup  d' Etat  to  fasten 
herself  secretly  to  the  chariot  of  the  new  Caesar.  For 
this  she  was  all  the  more  trusted  and  the  better  paid. 

The  chambre  noire,  which  I  mentioned  in  connec- 
tion with  the  last  reign,  was  installed  at  the  Tuileries 
as  soon  as  Napoleon  III  took  possession  of  it.  It  was 
not  rare  to  see  the  sovereign  himself  in  it  with  the 
Alessandris  and  the  Ruminis,  when  those  Corsicans, 
attached  to  his  person,  had  to  warn  His  Majesty  that 
some  new  Italians  had  been  dispatched  from  London, 
or  from  Naples,  to  attempt  his  life. 

The  informers,  plotters,  or  bravi,  who  came  to  get 
their  pay  in  this  secret  room  for  services  rendered,  had 
a  singular  way  of  presenting  an  order  for  the  sum  due. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  8i 

They  breathed  on  the  glass  of  the  door  of  the  chambre 
noire  and  then  wrote  their  names  on  the  mist  left 
there,  together  with  the  sum  to  be  paid.  Reading  this 
novel  cheque,  the  cashier  of  His  Majesty  paid  the 
money,  the  creditor  wiped  o£f  the  mist  with  the  sleeve 
of  his  coat,  and  no  trace  remained  of  the  passage  of 
the  spy,  who  was  never,  at  the  Tuileries,  a  personage 
of  a  low  order. 

M.  Lagrange,  chief  of  the  political  police,  was,  from 
the  moment  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  the  intermediary,  or 
rather,  the  point  of  union  between  the  Prefecture  and 
the  private  police  of  the  Chateau.  He  was  summoned 
to  the  chambre  noire  every  time  that  the  spies  gave  warn- 
ing of  a  plot  against  the  life  of  the  sovereign.  The 
affair  of  the  Federal  League  brought  into  fine  relief  his 
capacity.  He  also  distinguished  himself  in  the  arrests 
that  followed  the  plot  of  the  Opera-Comique.  But  he 
did  not  foresee  the  bombs  of  Orsini ;  and  if  the  dis- 
missal of  Pietri,  the  Prefect,  for  ignorance  in  that  affair, 
was  not  followed  by  that  of  Lagrange,  it  was  because 
the  latter's  services  were  more  precious  than  those  of 
the  Prefect  in  the  underground  world  of  the  Chateau 
police. 

M.  Lagrange  brought  weekly  to  the  chambre  noire, 
for  His  Majesty's  enlightenment,  one  or  more  of  the 
thirty-six  thousand  dossiers  [reports  on  individuals], 
which  were  found  in  that  chamber  and  burned  by 
the  Commune  —  reports  in  which  all  the  adversaries 
of  the  Empire  of  any  note, — Legitimists,  Orleanists, 
Republicans  —  had  their  names  and  histories  inscribed 


82  MEMOIRS   OF 

with  the  date  of  their  birth.  We  can  imagine,  therefore, 
the  value  of  his  functions.  Through  him.  Napoleon  III 
was  chief  spy  on  his  subjects  and,  through  the  cham- 
bre  noire,  the  Tuileries  was  an  annex  of  the  Prefect- 
ure. 

The  police  of  the  Empire  invented  a  new  species  of 
secret  agents.  They  were  under  the  absolute  orders 
of  M.  Lagrange,  and  were  called  indicateurs.  They 
must  not  be  confused  with  the  police  charged  with 
keeping  order  in  the  streets,  nor  with  the  inspectors, 
whose  duty  it  is  to  investigate  all  matters  affecting  the 
public  safety.  Exclusively  devoted  to  politics,  these 
"  indicators  "  were  spread  through  all  classes  of  society. 
They  wrote  to  M.  Lagrange  under  feigned  names. 
They  gave  him  detailed  reports  drawn  from  their  inti- 
mate relations  with  private  persons. 

Mme.  X was  one  of  these  indicatresses  paid  by 

M.  Lagrange.  At  this  period  women  played  a  very 
great  role  in  police  affairs.  Unhappily,  it  was  not  the 
Emperor's  police  alone  that  possessed  women  who  did 
this  most  unworthy,  but  very  lucrative,  business.  The 
police,  and  also  the  secret  societies  of  foreign  coun- 
tries, imitated,  in  this  respect,  our  taciturn  and  secretive 
Emperor. 

Even  the  Court  balls  were  under  the  eye  of  the  po- 
lice.  Extraordinary  as  it  may  seem,  Mme.  X •  and  I 

have  met  more  than  once,  without  appearing  to  know 
each  other,  as  invited  guests  at  the  Tuileries.  And 
we  were  far  from  being  the  only  spies  there  present. 
We  had  for  rivals  princesses,  countesses,  and  chevaliers 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  83 

of  all  Orders  acting  for  the  foreign  police.  After  the 
war  in  Italy,  agents  of  the  Prussian  Chancellor  invaded 
the  salons  of  the  Emperor  and  Empress.  These  Prus- 
sian spies  became  so  numerous  after  Sadowa  that  the 
Emperor  was  scarcely  master  in  his  own  house.  At 
the  Tuileries,  when  he  wished  to  speak  to  some  great 
French  dignitary  or  foreign  diplomat,  he  was  forced  to 
take  them  into  corners. 

Paris  saw,  in  its  very  highest  society,  princesses  and 
countesses  who  came  there  with  the  mission  of  cajoling 
His  Majesty  and  making  him  fall,  by  their  beauty  and 
charm,  into  the  traps  set  for  him  by  his  enemies.  I  will 
mention  two,  who. for  years  went  by  the  names,  in  Court 
circles  and  police  annals,  of  La  Prussienne  and  La 
Mazzinienne, 

The  first  of  these  ladies  was  devoted,  body  and  soul, 
to  Prussia.  She  never  ceased  conveying  to  it  informa- 
tion as  to  the  state  of  our  troops  and  their  effective 
force.  She  showed  the  reverse  side  of  our  military 
figures,  of  which  France  knew  only  the  obverse. 
Through  this  woman  the  Prussians  knew  us  by  heart ; 
while  Frenchmen  still  believed  that  Prussia  was  the 
vassal  of  old  Europe,  such  as  Europe  was  before  Sadowa. 
Yet  for  ten  years  Paris  never  ceased  to  admire  this 
woman.  All  salons  were  open  to  her;  the  most  distin- 
guished painters  have  given  to  posterity,  by  their  art, 
this  bewitching  creature,  who  has  now  made  us  pay 
dear  for  our  heedlessness,  our  want  of  caution,  and  our 
blunders. 

The  second  of  these  ladies,  an  Italian  princess,  was 


84  MEMOIRS   OF 

as  fatal  to  the  Emperor  personally  as  La  Prussienne 
proved  to  be  to  France.  This  Italian  princess  was  the 
devoted  friend  of  Orsini,  Mazzini's  right-hand  man/ 
and  it  was  she  who  foiled  the  police,  through  her  power 
over  the  Emperor,  at  the  period  when  the  horrible 
plot  of  January  14,  1858,  was  hatching  —  the  plot 
that  put  the  lives  of  the  Emperor  and  Empress  in 
peril,  deluged  the  rue  Lepelletier  with  blood,  wounded 
women,  children,  citizens,  and  soldiers,  and  immolated 
nearly  one  hundred  and  fifty  lives. 

The  part  that  I  played  (thanks  to  information  received 

from  Mme.  X )  in  that  bloody  affair  won  me  my 

elevation  to  the  post  of  Chief  of  Police,  after  the  dis- 
missal of  the  principal  agents  of  the  Prefecture,  and  of 
the  Prefect,  M.  Pietri,  who  had  allowed  himself  to  be 
fooled  by  the  agents,  or  rather  by  these  female  spies  of 
the  international  social  committees  of  London  and  Paris. 

As  for  Mme.  X ,  she  was  a  woman  who,  by  glid- 
ing, first  from  mere  caprice,  into  the  most  mysterious 
and  miry  paths  of  social  life,  had  acquired  a  very  great 
knowledge  of  men  and  things  in  the  Imperial  world. 
Her  shrewd  intellect,  as  unbiased  and  acute  as  that  of 
a  public  prosecutor,  her  cruel  perspicacity,  carried  her 
beyond  me,  a  trained  and  experienced  policeman.  I  knew 
before  long  that  she  possessed,  thanks  to  her  infernal 
gifts,  the  most  terrible  secrets  of  the  Imperial  Court. 

*  Felice  Orsini,  a  descendant  of  the  famous  Orsini  family,  which,  in 
the  1 2th  and  i8th  centuries  gave  cardinals  and  popes  to  the  Church.  The 
celebrated  Anne  de  la  Tremouille,  Princesse  des  Ursins  (Orsini),  mar- 
ried into  this  family. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  85 

After  seizing,  on  the  night  of  December  ist,  as  I  have 
related,  the  newspaper  presses  in  my  precinct,  I  had  the 
sad  business,  by  order  of  M.  de  Maupas,  of  dispersing 
the  representatives  at  the  Chamber,  or  of  conducting 
the  most  recalcitrant  to  Mazas.  I  have  already  said 
that  my  delicate,  illegal,  and  arbitrary  mission  was 
easier  to  fulfil  than  I  expected.  For  our  country  had 
so  long  been  the  victim  of  illegal  acts  that  it  now  stood 
aloof  from  the  struggle  between  the  Prince  and  a  Cham- 
ber that  was  wholly  unpopular.  M.  Thiers  understood 
this  plainly  enough  when  he  received  my  warning  on 
the  eve  of  the  Coup  d'Etat, 

At  this  period  the  conservatives,  under  the  threats 
of  socialism,  and  in  the  face  of  a  double-dealing  prince, 
were  themselves  outside  of  the  law.  France  belonged 
only  to  the  most  audacious.  Audacity  was  on  the  side 
of  the  Prince ;  it  was  not  on  the  side  of  the  Chamber, 
then  presided  over  by  Baron  Dupin,  who,  when  the 
Hall  was  invaded,  said  to  his  colleagues,  as  they  rallied 
around  him  for  resistance: 

"  There  's  no  help  for  it !  Undoubtedly  the  Consti- 
tution is  violated.  We  have  the  right  on  our  side,  but 
these  gentlemen  have  the  power.  We  can  only  with- 
draw." 

The  majority  of  the  deputies  who  did  not  yet  believe 
that  might  was  better  than  right,  voted  to  protest  against 
the  bayonets  that  turned  them  out  of  the  Temple  of 
the  Law,  where  the  Prince-President,  "before  God  and 
man,"  had  solemnly  sworn  fidelity  to  the  Republic. 
The  troops,  having  no  orders  to  arrest  the  represent- 


86  MEMOIRS   OF 

atives,  merely  turned  them  out  of  the  Chamber ;  on 
which  they  met,  in  special  session,  at  the  office  of  the 
Mayor  of  the  loth  arrondissement.  There  these  two 
hundred  and  twenty  members,  comprising  the  majority 
of  the  Chamber,  under  the  leadership  of  Benoist  d*  Azy, 
chose  for  their  defender  an  enemy  of  the  Republic  — 
General  Oudinot!  By  this  choice  it  became  an  easy 
matter  for  General  Forey,  of  the  Elysee  party,  to  carry 
out  the  orders  of  M.  de  Morny. 

When  General  Forey,  with  his  troops,  surrounded 
the  Mayor's  office,  I  was  sent  in  with  some  of  my  men 
to  show  M.  Benoist  d'Azy  M.  de  Maupas's  order,  and 
require  his  colleagues  either  to  disperse  or  be  taken  to 
the  Mazas  prison  by  a  detachment  of  chasseurs.  They 
chose  the  latter  course.  But  when  it  came  to  escorting 
them  to  Mazas,  General  Forey  reflected  that  a  first  batch 
of  representatives  and  generals  had  been  taken  earlier  in 
the  morning  through  the  faubourg,  and  that  it  might 
be  dangerous  to  take  a  second.  The  two  hundred  and 
twenty  representatives  were  accordingly  escorted  be- 
tween four  lines  of  soldiers  to  the  barracks  on  the  Quai 
d'Orsay,  General  Forey  at  the  head  of  the  convoy. 

I  was  witness  at  the  Mayor's  office  of  the  loth  arron- 
dissement of  the  unheard-of  brutality  and  shameful 
threats  with  which  these  representatives  were  forced  to 
quit  the  room.  At  Mazas,  in  the  early  morning,  the 
clerks  and  turnkeys  had  shown  the  same  brutality  to 
the  personages  they  were  ordered  to  lock  up.  Citizen 
Nadaud,  brought  in  at  the  same  time  as  M.  Thiers, 
observed  that  the  clerks,  when  they  questioned  the  illus- 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  d>j 

trious  writer  and  ex-minister,  were  laughing  at  him  with 
scoffing  and  sarcastic  eyes. 

"  A  little  decency,  gentlemen  !  "  cried  the  workman- 
deputy.  "  You  have  to  do  with  the  most  glorious  of  our 
orators,  a  learned  man,  one  of  those  who  have  done 
most  for  your  cause  —  you,  who  call  yourselves  men 
of  order.  Cowardly,  vile  reactionaries !  you  are  ever 
ungrateful !  " 

This  exordium  of  citizen  Nadaud  did  no  good.  They 
dragged  him  out  of  the  warden's  office  without  allow- 
ing him  to  say  another  word. 

The  cell  of  M.  Thiers  and  the  cell  of  the  banker, 
Mires,  at  Mazas  have  become  legendary.  They  are  still 
shown :  the  one  in  its  rigorous  simplicity ;  the  other, 
to  favour  the  great  financier,  made  double  in  size,  and 
furnished  in  a  manner  suitable  for  the  father-in-law  of 
Prince  Polignac !  There  is  another  room  at  Mazas,  on 
the  ground  floor,  called  ih^  parloir  des  avocats  [the  law- 
yers' parlour],  where  lawyers  can  confer  with  clients 
who  are  prisoners  at  Mazas.  Its  only  furniture  is  a  table 
and  a  few  chairs.  At  that  table  a  strange  assortment 
of  persons  have  been  seated, —  Thiers  and  Cavaignac, 
Mires  and  La  Pommerais. 

M.  Thiers,  "  son  of  the  Revolution,"  as  he  called  him- 
self, he  who  had  planned  a  coup  d'etat  with  men  who 
were  now  his  gaolers,  was  not  the  only  man  whom  the 
irony  of  fate  brought  to  Mazas.  The  maker  of  the  Col- 
umn of  July,  who  constructed  that  trophy  to  our  con- 
quests in  liberalism,  was  sent  to  prison  after  casting  his 
last  bronze  in  honour  of  the  martyrs  of  liberty ! 


88  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

Here  is  the  story :  S received  from  the  State  cer- 
tain cannons,  to  be  melted  up  for  the  Column  of  July. 
The  metal  did  not  prove  to  be  what  he  expected,  and 
he  sold  it  for  a  low  price.  Devoted  to  his  art,  and  too 
careless  of  his  interests,  the  artist  bought  a  superior 
metal  worthy  of  the  national  work  he  was  to  raise.  He 
then  finished  the  present  column.  It  is  a  masterpiece ; 
unique  in  its  capital,  because  the  Column  of  July,  unlike 
the  Column  of  Vendome,  is  in  open  work,  without  bronze 
plaques  fastened  to  the  masonry. 

This  work,  which  redounded  to  the  glory  of  the  artist, 
made  him  a  bankrupt.  The  assignees  discovered  that, 
in  order  to  perfect  his  work,  he  had  sold  the  cannons  of 
the  State,  thus  compromising  the  interests  of  his  asso- 
ciates, who  declared  themselves  deceived  in  their  good 
faith  and  defrauded  of  the  public  property.  S ex- 
piated his  masterpiece  at  Mazas,  which  faces  the  col- 
umn. The  genius  of  Liberty,  poised  at  the  top  of  the 
column,  turns  her  back  on  the  prison,  and  very  wisely 
conceals  from  it  her  broken  chains.  The  unfortunate 
artist  hurls  from  his  living  tomb  a  denial  of  that  column 
to  which  he  owes  his  loss  of  liberty. 


CHAPTER   VII 

HOW  I  PROTECTED  THE  INTERESTS  OF 
A  GREAT  LADY 


IN  1852,  nearly  a  year  after  the  Coup  (TEtat,  I  was 
awakened  at  one  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  see  a 
lady  who  desired  to  speak  to  me  in  private.  The 
matter  concerned  the  death  of  a  man,  so  my  secretary, 
who  roused  me,  said ;  adding  that  there  were  circum- 
stances which  related  to  a  young  princess. 

Before  making  known  the  object  of  this  visit  at  so 
unusual  an  hour,  I  must,  in  order  to  explain  what  fol- 
lows, give  some  account  of  the  secretary,  whom  the 
police  administration,  ruled  by  the  men  of  December, 
had  appointed  to  assist  me  in  my  functions.  Not  daring 
to  dismiss  me,  as  they  had  the  other  commissaries  of 
the  old  regime,  the  Napoleonic  powers  had  given  me, 
under  pretence  of  assistance,  a  watcher,  a  Corsican,  who, 
for  the  last  year,  had  followed  me  like  my  shadow.  He 
now  waited  about,  after  giving  me  the  coroneted  card 
of  the  lady  who  desired  to  speak  with  me  privately;  and 
I  was  actually  obliged  to  take  him  by  the  shoulders 
and  push  him  into  another  room  before  I  could  receive 
her  privately. 

The  name  of  this  lady,  which,  at  that  moment,  pos- 


90  MEMOIRS   OF 

sessed  great  authority  in  official  circles,  had  evidently 
produced  upon  my  secretary  a  cabalistic  effect.  In  vir- 
tue of  the  secret  mission  he  held  from  the  Prefecture 
over  me,  my  Corsican  believed  he  had  a  right,  in  the 
interests  of  this  lady,  to  be  presuming.  I  made  him 
understand  the  contrary,  for  which  the  lady  thanked 
me ;  though,  to  judge  by  her  convulsed  features,  she 
was  greatly  agitated  by  the  event,  whatever  it  was,  that 
had  just  happened. 

Mme.  de  Montijo  (for  that  w^as  her  name)  carried 
a  sort  of  travelling-bag,  filled  with  flasks  of  perfume. 
While  she  talked  eagerly  and  with  a  sort  of  thick  pro- 
nunciation, she  inhaled  from  one  or  other  of  the 
flasks,  which  soon  filled  the  room  with  a  suffocating 
odour. 

"  Monsieur,"  she  said,  "  I  have  just  witnessed  a  ter- 
rible event.  The  Prince  de  C ,  nephew  of  the  Prin- 

cesse  de  B ,  has  been  found  dead  in  his  room.   He 

has  shot  himself  with  a  pistol.  His  death  will  cast  deso- 
lation over  all  Paris.  But  the  most  terrible  part  of  it 
is,  that  the  end  of  this  unhappy  young  man  involves 
my  daughter,  the  wholly  innocent  cause  of  his  death. 
The  Prince,  who  was  the  confidant  of  a  friend,  pos- 
sessed certain  letters  from  him,  which,  if  they  fall  into 

the  hands  of  the  Princesse  de  B ,  will  be  the  ruin 

of  our  family." 

"  Well,  madame,"  I  said,  after  listening  to  her  atten- 
tively, "  what  can  I  do  in  the  matter .?  " 

"  Everything,  monsieur ;  are  you  not  the  commissary 
of  that  quarter  ? " 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  91 

"  Madame,"  I  answered,  "  my  functions  are  limited 
to  viewing,  with  you,  the  body  of  the  Prince,  and  mak- 
ing a  detailed  report  to  the  Prefecture." 

"  And  yet,"  said  the  lady,  opening  another  flask,  "  I 
thought  that  in  the  case  of  a  young  man  of  foreign 
birth,  it  was  indispensable  to  attach  the  seals." 

"  That  is  so,  madame ;  but  I  cannot  attach  them 
without  the  help  of  a  clerk  of  the  court." 

"  That  is  to  say,"  she  said,  with  a  frightened  look, 
"  you  cannot  be  alone  when  you  fulfil  that  formality. 
Who  becomes,  after  that,  the  guardian  of  the  seals  ? " 

"  The  next  of  kin  to  the  deceased." 

"  Ah,  that  is  the  misery  of  it !  the  misery  of  it ! "  she 
exclaimed,  with  tragic  pantomime,  —  "  the  Princesse 

de  B is  the  next  of  kin,  and  she  is  the  bitter  enemy 

of  my  daughter.  If  she  gets  possession  of  the  Prince's 
papers  she  will  use  them  against  my  child,  whose  pre- 
sent suitor  may  withdraw  in  consequence  of  the  calum- 
nies which  the  death  of  this  young  man  will  enable  his 
aunt,  the  Princess,  to  spread  about!  —  Monsieur,"  she 
went  on  eagerly,  "  those  letters  are  in  the  drawer  of  the 
desk  of  the  dead  Prince,  in  the  room  where  he  killed 
himself ;  they  are  in  a  box  labelled  *  Spanish  affairs.' 
Ah  !  monsieur,  if,  by  one  of  your  agents,  so  skilful,  so 
experienced,  you  could  make  those  letters  disappear — " 

"  Madame,"  I  said  with  indignation,  "  you  insult  me. 
If  you  knew  more  of  the  officers  of  the  French  magis- 
tracy, you  would  not  allow  yourself  to  make  such  a 
proposal." 

"Monsieur!"  she   exclaimed,   bursting  into   tears, 


92  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  God  is  my  witness  that  I  did  not  mean  to  insult  you. 
If  I  propose  to  you  —  at  the  cost  of  a  fortune  —  " 

"  Enough,  madame,  enough !  say  no  more." 

"  But,  monsieur,"  insisted  Mme.  de  Montijo,  whose 
tenacity  was  one  of  her  distinctive  characteristics,  "  I 
implore  you  to  save  my  daughter.  She  is  innocent  of 
any  wrong.  If  the  Prince  is  dead,  it  is  because  she  re- 
turned to  him  the  declarations  of  his  mad  passion. 
They  are  with  the  letters  of  his  friend,  the  Duke  of 
A ,  in  the  box  marked  '  Spanish  affairs.' " 

"  Once  more,  madame,  I  must  assure  you  that  I  do 
not  wish  to  know  these  details.  Pray  cease  your  vain 
endeavours  to  shake  my  conscience.  You  have  come 

here  to  inform  me  of  the  suicide  of  the  Prince  de  C . 

I  am  ready  to  follow  you  to  the  house,  to  examine  and 
report  the  suicide,  nothing  more." 

"  You  are  pitiless ! "  cried  Mme.  de  Montijo.  "  You 
will  be  responsible  for  a  misfortune  deliberately  planned 

for  some  time  by  the  Prince  de  C ,  in  revenge  for 

my  daughter's  rejection." 

"  I  am  responsible  to  my  chiefs  only,"  I  said  firmly, 
though,  in  truth,  I  was  much  moved  by  the  despair  of 
this  mother. 

At  that  moment  my  Corsican  suddenly  opened  the 
door  of  the  room.  Furious,  I  was  about  to  rebuke  his 
indiscretion,  when  he  explained  it  by  introducing  the 
physician  summoned  by  Mme.  de  Montijo  to  report  with 
me  upon  the  suicide.  This  put  an  end  to  the  scene. 
I  started  in  Mme.  de  Montijo's  carriage,  with  her,  the 
doctor,  and  my  secretary,  to  view  the  body  and  report 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  93 

upon  the  death.  On  our  way  I  saw  signs  of  intelligence 
given  by  my  Corsican  to  Mme.  de  Montijo,  which  con- 
vinced me  that  behind  the  door  of  my  room  the  spy 
had  listened  to  our  conversation. 

When  we  arrived  at  the  Prince's  house  I  found  the 
servants  in  a  state  of  great  excitement.  I  made  them 
take  me  at  once  to  the  room  where  the  deed  was  done. 
The  body  lay  on  the  floor.  The  ball  had  passed 
through  the  left  breast.  On  the  table  was  an  open  let- 
ter, written  by  the  deceased,  which  had  evidently  been 
returned  to  him,  for  the  seal  was  broken.  As  I  bent 
down  to  read  the  letter,  which  would  no  doubt  explain 
the  cause  of  the  suicide,  Mme.  de  Montijo,  trembling, 
her  eyes  full  of  tears,  leaned  over  my  shoulder  and 
pointed  to  the  last  sentence  in  the  letter,  which  was  as 
follows : 

"  If  you  persist  in  not  responding  to  the  deep  affec- 
tion that  I  feel  for  you,  if  you  treat  me  as  the  Duke  of 

A treated  you,  I  will  die;  yes,  I  swear  to  you  I  will 

die !  And  I  shall  not  do  as  you  did,  under  like  circum- 
stances, /  shall  not  cheat  deaths 

In  spite  of  myself,  I  shuddered.  The  body  lay  at  my 
feet,  proving  that  the  Prince  had  kept  his  word.  Mme. 
de  Montijo  was  right  in  what  she  had  said :  this  death 
was  the  supreme  vengeance  of  a  terrible  madman ! 

I  cast  my  eyes  about  the  room  to  render  account  to 
myself  of  what  must  have  been  the  last  thoughts  of 
this  man  before  he  sent  himself  to  another  world. 

I  did  not  see,  by  the  dim  light  of  the  one  lamp,  the 
desk  the  drawer  of  which  contained,  according  to  Mme. 


94  MEMOIRS   OF 

de  Montijo,  the  package  of  papers  marked  "Spanish  af- 
fairs." I  observed  that  my  Corsican  was  standing  at 
the  end  of  the  room,  with  his  hands  behind  his  back, 
watching  me  attentively. 

Otherwise,  I  was  wholly  absorbed  in  the  sinister  sight 
before  us.  I  could  scarcely  detach  my  eyes  from  the 
being  who  had  revenged  himself  on  the  woman  he 
loved  for  a  passion  he  had  not  the  courage  to  master.  I 
thought  him  doubly  guilty  in  leaving  death  to  complete 
his  vengeance.  To  my  eyes  he  was  base,  and  a  coward, 
and  his  dead  body  inspired  me  with  no  pity. 

I  examined  his  countenance  attentively.  He  was 
about  twenty-five  years  old.  He  had  the  olive  skin  pe- 
culiar to  Spaniards,  and  the  strongly-marked  features 
of  an  artful  and  vindictive  character.  His  heavy  jaws, 
his  narrow  forehead,  his  eyes  sunken  in  their  sock- 
ets, betrayed  a  savage  nature  ruled  by  a  malignant 
mind.  The  man  could  be  divined  from  his  corpse.  I 
comprehended  how  it  was  that,  unable  to  possess  the 
woman  he  loved,  he  preferred  to  destroy  himself  rather 
than  see  her  the  wife  of  another.  Too  well  brought 
up  in  a  certain  code  to  avenge  himself  coarsely,  he 
had  left  to  his  heirs  the  opportunity  of  completing  his 
vengeance. 

I  sat  down  at  the  table,  taking  possession,  as  it  was 
my  duty  to  do,  of  the  letter,  which  was  to  figure  in  my 
proces'verbaL  The  physician,  meantime,  had  made  his 
examination,  and  was  preparing  his  report.  At  that 
moment  Mme.  de  Montijo,  still  behind  me,  said  softly: 
"Thank  you."  It  did  not  seem  to  me  that  my  action. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  95 

which  was  part  of  my  official  duty,  deserved  any  grati- 
tude from  Mme  de  Montijo.  But  I  had  no  time  to 
think  about  it,  for  at  that  moment  the  scene  was  com- 
plicated by  the  arrival  of  another  person,  who  entered 
the  room  of  the  deceased  like  a  tornado. 

This  person  was  the  Princesse  de  B .  At  sight  of 

Mme.  de  Montijo,  the  Princess,  who  was  not  endowed 
with  sensibility,  paid  no  attention  whatever  to  the 
corpse.  She  bounded  like  a  hyenaj'cast  furious  glances 
at  Mme.  de  Montijo,  and  came  straight  to  me. 

"  Monsieur,"  she  said,  "  you  probably  know  the  cause 
of  the  death  of  my  nephew.  I  suspect  it.  But  if  I  were 
ignorant  of  it,  the  presence  here  of  madame"  —  here 
she  gazed  defiantly  at  Mme.  de  Montijo  —  "  would  in- 
form me  of  it.  Remorse  has  brought  that  woman  here. 
But  I,  I  have  come  for  vengeance !  Come,"  she  said, 
looking  me  full  in  the  face,  "  that  unhappy  man  must 
have  explained,  before  he  died,  the  cause  of  his  suicide." 

"Yes,  madame,  he  did,"  I  answered,  "in  a  letter 
which  now  forms  part  of  my  report." 

"  Give  it  to  me." 

"  I  cannot,  madame." 

"  What ! "  cried  the  Princess,  as  confounded  as  she 
was  angry ;  "  I  am  the  next  of  kin  to  the  Prince." 

"  I  do  not  doubt  it.  Princess,"  I  replied ;  "  but  now 
that  I  have  made  an  examination,  as  a  police  officer, 
into  the  death  of  the  Prince,  the  matter  must  go  to  the 
courts,  and  this  letter  which  you  claim  belongs  before 
all  to  the  law." 

At  this  answer  the  Princess,  who  was  irascible  by 


96  MEMOIRS   OF 

nature,  roared  like  a  Hon.  Observing  that  Mme.  de 
Montijo  looked  at  me  with  gratitude,  she  could  not 
contain  herself  for  rage. 

"  Very  good,"  she  said,  "  keep  that  letter  till  you  re- 
ceive a  new  order.  Allow  me  now  to  use  my  legal 
right  to  affix  the  seals.  But  before  proceeding  to  that 
formality,  I  shall  drive  out  that  woman.  She  has  no 
right  to  come  here  and  trouble  this  house  of  mourning." 

It  certainly  was  high  time  to  think  of  the  dead ;  and 

as  the  Princesse  de  B pointed  like  a  fury  at  Mme. 

de  Montijo,  the  latter  slipped  away  from  the  scene,  not 
forgetting  to  produce  another  flask  from  her  bag  to 
calm  her  agitation. 

During  this  shocking  scene  of  violence  before  a 
corpse  that  was  still  warm,  my  Corsican  remained  in 
the  same  position  at  the  end  of  the  room,  his  hands 
behind  his  back.  What  had  he  been  doing  while  I  was 
engaged  in  this  domiciliary  visit  .f^  I  could  not  explain  it 
to  myself.  Distrusting  the  man,  who  was  my  Argus, 
I  called  him  to  me  at  the  moment  when  the  two  noble 
ladies  were  looking  at  each  other  like  two  fishwives, 
and  I  ordered  him  to  sit  down  at  the  table  and  write  at 
my  dictation.  He  obeyed  with  an  alacrity  that  seemed 
to  me  suspicious  ;  for  I  certainly  detected  on  his  face 
a  sort  of  fear  which  he  was  trying  to  hide  by  excess 
of  zeal.  But  I  had  no  time  to  give  to  such  suspicions, 
for  a  clerk  of  the  court  arrived  to  affix  the  seals  before 
I  had  finished  dictating  my  proces-verbal. 

The  Princesse  de  B ,  while  shedding  a  few  tears 

over  her  young  relative,  was,  no  doubt,  congratulating 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  97 

herself  inwardly  on  being  able  to  make  that  death  a 
weapon  of  war  against  the  daughter  of  her  enemy.  She 
felt  certain  that  among  the  chattels  of  the  deceased 
there  must  be  a  receptacle  which,  like  Pandora's  box, 
would  yield  something  to  bring  discord  and  lead  to  a 
rupture  between  Mme.  de  Montijo's  daughter  and  her 
present  suitor.  I  myself  feared,  from  what  Mme.  de 
Montijo  had  told  me,  that  the  vengeance  of  the  Prince 
would  have  some  terrible  effect. 

What  the  vindictive  old  Princess  imagined  as  little 
as  I  did  was  what  actually  happened  when  the  seals 
were  removed. 

The  papers  of  the  Prince  de  C were,  by  the 

influence  of  the  Princesse  de  B ,  taken  to  the  Pre- 
fecture, and  subjected  to  the  investigation  of  M.  La- 
grange, Chief  of  the  Political  Division  of  the  Police ; 
they  were  also  submitted  to  the  important  personage 
betrothed  to  Mile,  de  Montijo,  whom  these  papers  were 
supposed  to  interest  personally.  But  absolutely  nothing 
was  found  in  them  that  could  compromise  the  young 
lady.    The  only  paper  which  showed  that  the  Prince 

de   C had  destroyed  himself  on  account  of  the 

betrothed  of  his  great  rival  was  the  letter  annexed  to 
my  report,  and  that  letter  was  only  another  proof  of, 
and  a  striking  homage  to,  the  virtue  of  Mme.  de  Mon- 
tijo's daughter. 

I  own  that  I  myself  was  very  much  astonished  at 
this  negative   result  which  foiled  the    Princesse   de 

B ,  for,  shortly  after,  the  young  lady  was  married 

to  the  illustrious  personage  of  her  choice.   Another 


98  MEMOIRS   OF 

thing  that  surprised  me  was  the  disappearance  of  my 
Corsican.  He  never  came  again  to  my  office  after  the 
suicide  of  the  Prince  de  C . 

Long  afterwards,  when  I  thought  no  more  of  these 
matters,  Mme.  de  Montijo  came  again  to  see  me.  She 
was  then  on  the  point  of  returning  to  Spain. 

"  Monsieur  Claude,"  she  said,  "  I  cannot  leave  France 
without  personally  thanking  you,  and  leaving  you  a 
testimonial  to  my  warm  gratitude." 

I  looked  at  her  with  amazement. 

"  Really,  madame,"  I  said,  "  I  don't  know  what  you 
mean." 

"You  remember  the  suicide  of  the  Prince  de  C } " 

"  I  remember  it  very  well,  madame." 

"  And  you  forget,  from  discretion  no  doubt,  that  you 
protected  the  interests  of  my  daughter  under  those 
tragic  circumstances." 

"  I  forget  nothing,  madame ;  on  the  contrary,  I  re- 
member that  my  duty  compelled  me  to  refuse  to  con- 
ceal papers  which,  happily  for  you,  existed  only  in  your 
imagination." 

"  They  did  exist,  monsieur ;  and  you  know  it,  in- 
asmuch as  it  was  you,  no  matter  what  you  say,  who 
removed  them,  by  your  secretary." 

"  Madame  !  madame ! "  I  exclaimed,  in  a  state  of  ex- 
citement that  gave  me  a  vertigo,  "  it  is  not  so !  If  that 
scoundrel  to  hide  his  own  act  asserts  my  connivance, 
he  lies  —  yes,  madame,  he  lies  odiously." 

"  Come,  come !  Monsieur  Claude,  don't  be  angry. 
Your  anger  is  only  another  proof  of  your  ability,"  she 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  99 

said,  smiling ;  "  it  cannot  impose  upon  me  or  release 
me  from  the  duty  of  gratitude." 

"  Madame,"  I  replied, "  what  I  told  you  formerly,  I  now 
repeat :  I  am  an  honest  man,  incapable  of  doing  an  act 
which  should  make  a  public  functionary  blush.  I  now 
demand  that  you  tell  me  what  that  fellow  did  to  com- 
promise me  and  serve  you  in  spite  of  me." 

Then  Mme.  de  Montijo,  only  half-convinced  by  my 
violent  indignation,  explained  how  my  secretary  (who 
must  have  overheard  my  first  conversation  with  her) 
went  to  work  to  obtain  the  papers.  The  following  is 
what  she  related  to  me : 

At  the  moment  when  the  Princesse  de  B entered 

the  room  like  a  tornado,  my  Corsican,  who  had  care- 
fully placed  himself  in  front  of  the  Prince's  secretary, 
with  his  hands  behind  his  back,  had  just  opened  the 
drawer  of  that  piece  of  furniture.  Feeling  about  with 
his  fingers  for  the  bundle  of  letters,  he  found  them  and 
rapidly  transferred  them  to  a  pocket  in  his  coat-tails. 
This  explanation  gave  me  the  key  to  the  whole  affair. 
Of  course  I  could  then  do  nothing  against  what  had 
already  been  done.  Besides  I  should  ruin  myself  by 
denouncing  a  man  who,  through  venality,  had  done 
a  real  service  to  personages  who  held  my  honour,  my 
position,  my  life  in  their  hands.  I  said  no  more  to 
Mme.  de  Montijo  beyond  refusing  her  testimonials  of 
gratitude. 

But  I  was  not  yet  quit  of  the  affair.  Some  days 
later,  an  ex-ambassador,  known  to  be  the  intimate 
friend  of  Mme.  de  Montijo,  came  to  me  and  offered 


loo  MEMOIRS   OF 

to  make  me,  in  exchange  for  a  very  small  sum,  one  of 
the  principal  shareholders  in  a  Society  for  "  Chemical 
Products " ;  a  society  with  a  capital  of  600,000,000 
francs,  founded  under  the  patronage  of  my  visitor.  I 
refused  the  honour  and  the  profit  which  the  noble 
Spaniard  deigned  to  offer  me,  under  pretext  that  I 
was  not  rich  enough  to  avail  myself  of  this  proof  of 
gratitude  from  Mme.  de  Montijo  who,  I  added,  owed 
me  absolutely  nothing. 

Lucky  for  me  that  I  did  so!  The  ex-ambassador, 
after  obtaining  from  the  adherents  of  the  new  Empire 
1,500,000  francs  for  the  costs  of  organizing  the  work 
of  the  Society,  forgot  to  organize  it,  shouldered  the 
cash-box,  and  crossed  the  Pyrenees. 

[NOTE,  —  The  Empress  Eugenie,  to  whom  this  incident  of  M.  Claude's 
memoir  relates,  was  the  granddaughter  of  Mr.  Fitzpatrick,  American  Con- 
sul at  Malaga  during  the  early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Mr.  Fitz- 
patrick's  wife  was  of  Scotch  descent,  and  claimed  to  be  connected  in  some 
remote  way  with  the  Stuarts.  They  had  one  daughter,  a  very  beautiful  and 
accomplished  girl,  who  made  a  brilliant  marriage  with  the  Marquis  de 
Montijo,  Comte  de  Teba.  He  died  after  a  few  years  of  married  life,  leaving 
her  with  two  young  daughters,  one  of  whom  subsequently  married  the  Duke 
of  Alba  ;  the  other,  Eugdnie,  became  Empress  of  the  French.  Madame  de 
Montijo  was  admired  wherever  she  lived;  and  two  distinguished  Americans 
have  left  on  record  their  opinion  of  her. 

Mr.  George  Ticknor,  the  historian  of  Spanish  literature,  wrote  thus  of 
her  to  his  family  in  1828  : 

"  I  knew  Madame  de  Montijo  in  Madrid,  and  from  what  I  saw  of  her 
there  and  at  Malaga,  I  do  not  doubt  she  is  the  most  beautiful  and  accom- 
phshed  woman  in  Spain.  Young,  beautiful,  educated  strictly  by  her  mother, 
a  Scotch  woman  (who  for  this  purpose  took  her  to  England  and  kept  her 
there  six  or  seven  years),  possessing  extraordinary  talents,  and  giving  an 
air  of  originality  to  all  she  says  and  does,  she  unites,  in  a  most  bewitching 
manner,  Andalusian  grace  and  frankness  with  French  facility  of  manners 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 


101 


and  English  thoroughness  in  her  knowledge  and  accomplishments.  She 
knows  the  chief  modern  languages  well ;  feels  their  different  characteris- 
tics, and  estimates  their  literatures  aright.  She  has  the  foreign  accom- 
plishments of  painting,  singing,  playing,  etc.,  joined  to  the  natural  one  of 
dancing,  in  a  high  degree.  In  conversation  she  is  brilliant  and  original  j 
yet  with  all  this,  she  is  a  true  Spaniard,  and  as  full  of  Spanish  feelings  as 
she  is  of  talents  and  culture." 

In  1853,  Washington  Irving  who,  for  several  years,  was  American  Min- 
ister at  the  Court  of  Spain,  wrote  as  follows  to  his  nephew  : 

"  I  believe  I  told  you  that  I  knew  the  grandfather  of  the  Empress,  old 
Mr.  Fitzpatrick.  In  1827  I  was  at  the  house  of  his  son-in-law.  Count  Teba, 
Marquis  de  Montijo,  in  Granada ;  a  gallant,  intelligent  gentleman,  much 
cut  up  in  the  wars,  having  lost  an  eye,  and  been  maimed  in  a  leg  and  a 
hand.  Some  years  later,  in  Madrid,  I  was  invited  to  the  house  of  his  widow, 
Madame  de  Montijo,  one  of  the  leaders  of  ton.  She  received  me  with  the 
warmth  and  eagerness  of  an  old  friend.  She  subsequently  introduced  me 
to  the  little  girls  I  had  known  in  Granada,  now  become  fashionable  belles 
in  Madrid.  .  .  .  Louis  Napoleon  and  Eugenie  de  Montijo — Emperor  and 
Empress  of  France !  He,  whom  I  received  as  an  exile  at  my  cottage  on  the 
Hudson ;  she,  whom  at  Granada,  I  have  dandled  on  my  knee !  The  last 
I  knew  of  Eugdnie  de  Montijo,  she  and  her  gay  circle  had  swept  away 
a  charming  young  girl,  beautiful  and  accomplished,  a  dear  friend  of  mine, 
into  their  career  of  fashionable  dissipation.  Now  Eugenie  is  on  a  throne ; 
and  the  other  is  a  voluntary  recluse  in  a  convent  of  one  of  the  most 
rigorous  Orders." 

Though  the  Empress  Eugenie  was  indeed  gay  and  even  giddy  from 
her  youth,  and  through  some  years  of  her  imperial  life,  no  breath  of  real 
scandal  dimmed  her  name.  The  story  that  M.  Claude  half  tells  had 
nothing  in  it  that  was  discreditable  to  the  young  girl.  It  was  well  known 
at  the  time,  and  is  simply  as  follows  :  Eugenie  de  Montijo  was  engaged  to 
the  Duke  of  Alba,  whom  she  adored.  He  was  faithless  to  her,  and  mar- 
ried her  sister,  with  the  consent  of  the  family.  The  young  girl  suffered 
terribly  for  a  time  in  health  and  spirits ;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  Mme.  de 
Montijo  was  anxious  to  recover  letters  that  related  to  a  family  distress. 
An  anecdote,  told  by  one  of  the  de  Goncourts,  throws  light  on  one,  and 
probably  the  chief,  motive  for  her  action : 

The  Emperor,  he  says,  who  was  passionately  in  love  with  Mile,  de 
Montijo,  was  as  passionately  jealous  of  her  heart.  Riding  together  in  the 
forest  of  Compi^gne,  he  suddenly  asked  her  if  she  had  ever  been  in  love 


lOi  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

with  any  man.  To  which  she  answered,  with  the  simplicity  of  truth :  "  I 
may  have  had  fancies,  sire,  but  I  have  never  forgotten  that  I  was  Ma- 
demoiselle de  Montijo." 

That  anecdote  explains  why  her  mother  was  anxious  to  recover  the 
letters : —  not  to  screen  her  daughter's  fame,  which  was  never  in  ques- 
tion, but  to  prevent  the  jealous  Emperor  from  breaking  off  the  mar- 
riage.] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   BOMBS   OF  ORSINI 


ON  the  morning  of  the  12th  of  January,  1858, 
I  received  a  secret  visit  in  my  private  office 
from  Mme.  X ,  the  Chateau  spy.   She 

seemed  in  a  state  of  great  excitement;  her  features 
were  convulsed ;  her  voice  was  broken  by  either  fear 
or  despair.  I  had  not  seen  her  of  late ;  in  fact,  I  had 
avoided  her,  and  I  felt  that  some  serious  circumstance 
must  have  occurred  to  bring  her  to  me.  I  was  not 
mistaken. 

"  My  friend,"  she  said,  falling  into  a  chair,  "  I  am  in 
despair.  The  Emperor  is  not  prudent  enough  with  his 
mistresses ;  he  tells  them  too  much,  he  trusts  them  too 
far." 

"  I  do  not  understand  you,  madame,"  I  said  coldly. 

"  Ah,  true !  of  course  you  cannot  know  that  for  several 
months  past  he  has  met  in  turn,  at  my  house  at  Au- 
teuil,  an  English  woman  and  two  Italians,  one  of  whom 
is  that  duchess,  la  Prussienne  ;  the  other  a  princess, 
both  of  whom  are  affiliated  with  the  Mazzini  band." 

I  was  stunned  for  a  moment  under  this  revelation. 

But  knowing  the  excitability  of  Mme.  X ,  I  was 

about  to  treat  the  matter  as  folly,  when  I  remembered 


I04  MEMOIRS   OF 

the  words  of  the  petulant  Marquis  de  Boissy,  recently 
uttered  by  him  in  the  tribune  of  the  Senate  Cham- 
ber: 

"  The  Emperor  is  not  cautious  enough  with  women. 
His  Majesty,  out  of  regard  for  us  and  for  himself,  ought 
not  to  put  himself  at  the  mercy  of  the  first  hussy  who 
comes  along." 

I  therefore  asked  Mme.  X ,  with  some  excitement 

of  my  own : 

"What  makes  you  suppose  that  those  women  are 
conspirators  ?  " 

"  I  suppose  nothing,"  she  replied;  "I  assert.  If  I  had 
nothing  but  suppositions  I  should  not  come  here  to 
see  you.  If  the  Chateau,  under  the  influence  of  those 
Italians  and  that  English  woman,  did  not  turn  a  deaf 
ear  to  my  revelations,  I  should  not  be  here  now.  But 
alas !  I  have  no  other  hope  than  in  your  assistance,  my 
good  Claude,  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  Minister  of  the 
Interior,  the  Prefect  of  the  Seine,  and  the  Prefect  of 
Police,  who  are  doing  nothing  and  will  do  nothing 
against  the  dangerous  confidants  of  the  Emperor's 
mistresses." 

For  a  moment  I  was  perplexed  and  almost  as  agitated 

as  Mme.  X .   She  was  showing  me  a  danger  and 

casting  me  into  it.  Her  excess  of  zeal  had  made  her 
discover  some  plot  which,  for  their  own  security,  my 
chiefs  evidently  did  not  wish  to  know  of,  fearing  to 
draw  down  upon  themselves  hatreds  that  might  destroy 
their  power. 

I  answered  her  rather  curtly : 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  105 

"  If  the  Minister,  and  if  my  chiefs  refuse  to  believe 
you,  why  do  you  expect  me  to  believe  you  ? " 

"  But,"  she  persisted  in  a  tone  of  certainty,  "  I  have 
the  evidence." 

"  Prove  it  to  me." 

"  You  know  that  Percy  whose  real  name  is  Pieri  ? 
Well,  he  is  in  Paris." 

"What  of  that.?" 

"  I  saw  him  come  out  of  my  house  at  Auteuil ;  he 
had  just  left  the  Italian  Princess  who  comes  there  often 
to  meet  the  Emperor,  though  all  the  Court,  except  His 
Majesty,  knows  she  is  the  mistress  of  Orsini,  Mazzini's 
right  hand." 

"  That  does  not  prove  that  Percy,  or  Pieri,  has  come 
to  plot  against  the  Emperor.  To  relieve  your  mind  of 
that  idea,  I  will  tell  you  in  confidence  something  that 
I  have  from  Lagrange  himself  [Chief  of  the  Political 
Police].  It  is  this :  the  Emperor  is  reconciled  with 
Mazzini.  Before  long  France  will  feel  the  results  of 
this  reconciliation,  possibly  in  a  war  with  Austria. 
Why,  then,  should  the  Italian  Internationalists  continue 
to  send  conspirators  against  the  Emperor  who  now 
dreams  only  of  the  independence  of  their  country." 

"  Ah ! "  exclaimed  Mme.  X impatiently ;  "  that 's 

all  you  know  at  the  Prefecture,  is  it  ?  I  am  not  sur- 
prised that  your  Pietri  [then  Prefect]  lets  regicides  do 
what  they  like  in  Paris,  or  that  the  Emperor's  life  is 
no  more  safe  than  that  of  a  rabbit  on  a  plain !  Let  me 
tell  you  that  it  is  since  the  Emperor's  reconciliation 
with  Mazzini  that  the  latter's  party  is  more  furious  than 


io6  MEMOIRS   OF 

ever  against  Napoleon.  This  very  day  it  has  dispatched 
Orsini  from  London  to  checkmate  this  new  reconcilia- 
tion which  will  once  more  make  Mazzini  the  Emperor's 
dupe." 

It  was  my  turn  to  be  both  surprised  and  alarmed  at 
this  unexpected  revelation. 

"  But,"  I  exclaimed, "  how  did  you  obtain  these  details." 

"  From  the  wife  of  that  Percy,  who,"  she  repeated,  "  is 
not  Percy  but  Pieri "  (a  man  against  whom,  as  I  well 
knew,  she  had  a  long-standing  grudge  and  enmity). 
"  The  woman  lives  in  the  rue  de  Champ-d'Asile,  at 
Montrouge.  You  see  I  give  you  facts.  I  have  not  lost 
track  of  that  man  since  he  left  my  house  at  Auteuil,  for 
a  day,  nor  an  hour,  no,  not  a  minute.  I  have  learned 
that  he  left  London  January  8.  He  is  not  with  his  wife 
at  Montrouge,  and  I  have  just  discovered  that  he  is 
stopping  at  the  Hotel  de  France  et  de  Champagne 
under  the  name  of  Joseph  Andre  Percy." 

"  Why,"  I  said,  carefully  jotting  down  the  name  and 
address  in  my  note-book,  —  "  why  did  n't  you  have  the 
man  arrested  as  a  suspicious  person  who  has  no  right 
to  be  in  France } " 

"  Because,"  she  replied,  "  I  wanted  to  know  his  pre- 
sent object ;  and  I  do  know  it  now,  from  his  wife  whom 
I  have  seen  and  questioned  —  adroitly.  Well,  this  Pieri 
has  been  sent  by  that  London  committee,  presided  over 
by  Ledru-Rollin,  to  assassinate  the  Emperor.  He  is 
affiliated  with  others,  one  of  whom,  hiding  under  an 
English  name,  is  no  other  than  Orsini,  Mazzini's  right- 
hand  man.  I  have  these  details  from  Pieri's  wife." 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  107 

"  But,"  I  objected,  "  is  it  likely  that  if  such  a  plot 
exists,  the  wife  of  one  of  the  conspirators  would  tell 
such  facts  out  of  mere  gossip  when  she  must  know 
they  would  bring  her  husband  to  the  scaffold  ? " 

"  She  may  have  her  reasons,"  she  replied  signifi- 
cantly. "  If  this  Fieri,  this  conspirator,  has  n't  the  cour- 
age to  betray  his  accomplices  openly,  he  may  be  glad 
to  find,  through  his  wife,  an  agent  who  may  help  him  to 
escape  the  guillotine." 

"  My  dear,"  I  said,  to  shorten  this  curious  interview, 
"  I  think  that  by  encouraging  the  talk  of  the  wife  of 
the  man  who  injured  you,  you  are  seeking  a  personal 
vengeance.  Permit  me  to  believe,  until  further  proof, 
that  the  Minister  and  my  superiors  are  right  in  not 
acting  on  your  premature  judgement.  Nevertheless, 
I  take  note  of  your  revelations,  and  of  the  whereabouts 
of  this  Fieri,  who  shall  be  closely  watched." 

"  Ah  !  "  she  cried,  leaving  me  with  a  contemptuous 
air,  "you  think  I  am  acting  from  personal  vengeance 
—  ah !  you  are  like  all  the  rest !  Ah !  in  spite  of  my 
warning,  you  persist  in  thinking  His  Majesty  runs 
no  great  danger  —  Well,  you  will  see !  you  will 
see!" 

And  away  she  went. 

I  own  I  was  much  shaken,  in  spite  of  my  denials,  by 
her  evident  belief  in  the  truth  of  what  she  said.  She 
certainly  had  cause  for  bitter  personal  hatred  against 
Fieri ;  but  the  information  she  gave  me  coincided  with 
some  that  the  London  police  had  sent  to  the  police  of 
Paris.  M.  Lagrange,  Chief  of  the  Political  Police,  had 


io8  MEMOIRS   OF 

been  informed  of  the  departure  from  London  of  Orsini 
and  three  other  adherents  of  Mazzini.  But  neither  the 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  M.  Billault,  nor  the  Prefect  of 
Police,  M.  Pietri,  had  given  orders  to  prevent  any 
consequences  that  might  result  from  this  new  move  of 
the  socialist  committees.  Either  the  danger  was  not 
serious,  or  some  powerful  influence  was  protecting  the 
Emperor's  enemies. 

It  was  plainly  impossible  for  me  to  knock  down  a  bar- 
rier Mme.  X had  failed  to  overcome.  I  contented 

myself  with  making  her  information  the  subject  of  a 
report.  It  remained  without  answer  from  either  the 
Ministry  or  the  Prefecture. 

A  few  days  later  that  very  report  brought  me  upon 
the  stage  in  the  horrible  drama  that  neither  the  Em- 
peror nor  his  Minister  had  prevented,  because  a  woman, 
the  Italian  Princess,  had  an  interest  in  seeing  its  terri- 
ble conclusion  —  that  is  to  say,  in  causing  the  Emperor 
to  fall  into  a  trap  laid  for  him  by  her  lover,  a  regicide. 

Two  days  after  I  had  received  the  visit  of  Mme.  X 

and  had  made  my  report,  Paris  was  shuddering  with 
horror  at  the  frightful  catastrophe  that  had  taken  place 
under  the  peristyle  of  the  Opera  House. 

On  the  evening  of  January  14,  1858,  the  Emperor 
and  Empress  went  to  the  Grand  Opera,  where  the 
highest  Parisian  society  awaited  their  coming.  The 
Duke  of  Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,  who  was  staying  at  the 
Chateau,  had  preceded  their  Majesties.  An  immense 
crowd  was  assembled  in  the  street,  among  them  many 
policemen,  at  the  head  of  whom  was  the  famous  Ales- 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  109 

sandri,  the  officer  specially  charged  to  watch  over  the 
person  of  the  Emperor. 

This  evening  the  Prefecture  was  on  the  watch, 
though  tardily,  in  consequence  of  a  fresh  manifesto 
from  Mazzini,  published  at  Genoa  in  the  Italia  del 
Popolo,  Each  manifesto  had  hitherto  been  the  signal 
for  homicidal  outbreaks ;  and  new  reports  had  come 
from  foreign  parts  speaking  of  infernal  machines  and 
repeating  that  emissaries  had  left  London  for  Paris  by 
way  of  Brussels.  If  proper  precautions  on  the  part  of 
the  Government  were  not  taken,  it  was  not  the  fault 
of  the  subalterns  of  the  Prefecture,  nor  of  its  agents 
in  foreign  countries. 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  Thursday,  January  14,  that 
their  Majesties  announced  their  intention  of  being  pre- 
sent at  the  Opera  House  that  evening.  The  programme 
arranged  for  the  benefit  of  Massol,  who  had  just  retired 
from  the  stage,  consisted  of  three  acts  of  Marie  Tudor, 
played  by  Mme.  Ristori,  and  one  scene  of  La  Muetle. 
The  fa9ade  of  the  theatre  was  brilliantly  illuminated. 

At  half-past  eight  o'clock  the  imperial  cortege  came 
at  a  slow  trot  down  the  boulevards  to  enter  the  rue 
Le  Pelletier.  It  consisted  of  three  carriages  escorted 
by  a  company  of  the  lancers  of  the  guard,  commanded 
by  a  lieutenant,  who  rode  close  to  the  right-hand  door 
of  the  carriage  in  which  were  the  Emperor  and 
Empress ;  the  sergeant  of  the  guard  riding  beside  the 
left-hand  door. 

At  the  moment  when  this  carriage,  which  was  the 
last,  came  in  front  of  the  peristyle  of  the  Opera  House, 


no  MEMOIRS   OF 

the  two  which  had  preceded  it,  occupied  by  the  cham- 
berlains and  the  officers  of  the  palace,  were  already 
under  the  vaulted  passage  leading  to  a  special  pavilion, 
in  which  was  a  new  stairway  just  constructed  for  the 
use  of  the  Emperor. 

In  the  same  carriage  with  their  Majesties  sat  Gen- 
eral Roguet.  The  coachman  slackened  speed  to  enter 
the  passage,  and  at  that  instant  an  explosion  like  a 
thunder-clap  was  heard.  Fire-balls  burst  upon  the 
pavement,  scattering  murderous  projectiles.  Two  de- 
tonations follow^ed  the  first.  They  extinguished  all  the 
gas-jets.  Eyes  that  a  moment  before  were  dazzled  by 
the  brilliancy  saw  nothing  suddenly  but  blackest  night. 
In  that  darkness  was  heard  the  crash  of  glass  along 
the  peristyle,  the  snorting  of  frightened  horses,  the 
heartrending  shrieks  of  the  wounded  and  dying,  whose 
blood  began  to  flow  along  the  roadway. 

During  these  three  explosions  of  this  homicidal  hur- 
ricane, a  rain  of  iron  and  fire  fell  upon  the  imperial 
carriage,  and  gushed  from  the  pavement  upon  the 
living  rampart  that  surrounded  the  Emperor  and  Em- 
press. The  horses  of  the  escort  plunged  around  the 
carriage,  trampling  on  the  dead  and  dying.  The  zinc 
awning  of  the  peristyle  echoed  under  the  blows  of 
this  infernal  hail ;  the  windows  of  the  adjacent  houses 
crashed  with  a  din  as  fearful  as  that  of  the  first  explo- 
sions.   The  murderous  attempt  of  the  14th  of  January, 

of  which   Mme.  X had  given  warning,  was  an 

accomplished  fact. 

Mingling  with  the  populace  crowding  the  pavement, 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  m 

the  murderers  had  thrown  three  bombs  in  succession. 
The  effects  were  awful.  The  pavements  ran  blood ; 
the  posters  on  the  walls  were  splashed  with  it.  Among 
the  dead  and  dying,  the  terrified  servants  struggled  to 
see,  with  haggard  eyes,  what  had  happened  to  their 
sovereign.  The  first  bomb  had  scarcely  burst  among 
the  escort  of  lancers,  before  the  second  exploded  under 
the  front  wheels  of  the  imperial  carriage,  killing  the 
horses.  If  the  body  of  the  carriage  had  not  been  lined 
throughout  with  iron  plates,  it  could  not  have  resisted 
the  seventy-six  projectiles  with  which  it  was  riddled. 

At  the  first  explosion,  the  Emperor  attempted  to  get 
out  of  the  carriage  on  the  right-hand  side,  to  seek  re- 
fuge behind  the  peristyle.  Being  unable  to  open  the 
door,  he  awaited,  motionless  and  stupefied,  as  did  the 
Empress,  the  end  of  the  detonations  and  the  carnage. 
The  Emperor's  hat  was  shot  through  by  some  project- 
ile that  slightly  wounded  his  face.  The  Empress  was 
also  slightly  wounded  on  the  forehead.  As  for  General 
Roguet,  he  received  a  wound  the  danger  of  which  was 
not  discovered  until  later. 

Hardly  had  the  last  explosion  ceased  when  a  man 
with  a  mutilated  face  thrust  his  head  into  the  carriage, 
staining  the  gown  of  the  Empress  with  his  blood.  Was 
he  the  doer  of  the  deed,  seeking  to  know  if  his  work 
was  accomplished  ?  No ;  his  voice  reassured  their  Maj- 
esties at  once.  He  was  Alessandri,  the  most  faithful, 
the  most  devoted  agent  of  the  Emperor,  who  now  flung 
himself  before  his  master  to  make  a  rampart  of  his  own 
body.   Next,  behind   him,  M.  Lanot,  Commissary  of 


112  MEMOIRS   OF 

Police  at  the  Opera  House,  appeared ;  then  M.  Hebert, 
a  police  officer,  and  MM.  Alphonse  Royer  and  Gustave 
Vaez,  directors  of  the  theatre. 

The  Emperor  and  Empress  then  left  the  carriage, 
assisted  by  General  Roguet  —  far  more  seriously  hurt 
than  their  Majesties.  They  made  their  way  slowly  to 
the  great  door  of  entrance.  The  dress  of  the  Empress 
was  spattered  with  blood ;  she  left  behind  her  a  mound 
of  dead  and  dying  men,  the  number  of  whom  amounted 
to  one  hundred  and  sixty  persons.  The  Emperor's 
coachman  and  three  footmen  were  seriously  wounded. 
Two  of  the  lancers  were  shot,  one  mortally,  but  he 
would  not  leave  his  post.  When  the  lieutenant  in  com- 
mand of  the  company  called  to  his  men  asking  if  any 
were  wounded,  "  I  am,"  replied  the  lancer,  raising  his 
hand.  Then  he  fell  into  the  arms  of  a  comrade  and 
died  shortly  after. 

A  few  minutes  before  the  first  explosion  the  police  offi- 
cer Hebert  met,  at  the  corner  of  the  rue  Le  Pelletier, 
a  man  that  he  recognized  as  Fieri,  whom  my  report, 
and  also  a  dispatch  from  the  agent  at  Brussels,  had 
announced  as  having  arrived  in  Paris  January  9,  with 
a  companion,  for  the  purpose  of  assassinating  the 
Emperor.  Pieri  was  arrested  and  taken,  temporarily, 
to  the  nearest  police  station.  He  was  found  to  carry 
a  five-barrelled  revolver,  a  knife,  a  dagger,  a  Bank  of 
England  note,  and  a  small  metal  cylinder.  The  latter 
was  evidently  an  explosive  machine,  for  Pieri  said : 

"  Take  care !  mind  that,  for  it  may  do  harm." 

This  arrest  took  place  only  a  few  minutes  before 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  113 

the  first  bomb  exploded.  Hebert,  though  wounded  by 
several  fragments  of  the  projectile,  made  the  report  of 
his  important  capture  instantly,  being  confident  that  he 
had,  fortunately,  arrested  one  of  the  murderers  before 
he  had  been  able  to  do  his  part  in  the  crime. 

It  was  also,  thanks   to   my  report,  due   to    Mme. 

X that  the   Prefecture   was   immediately  on  the 

track  of  Pieri's  accomplices,  namely,  Orsini,  Gomez, 
and  Rudio.  It  was  not  midnight  when,  in  consequence 
of  Hebert's  report,  I  received  orders  to  go  to  the  Hotel 
de  France  et  de  Champagne,  where,  as  I  had  already 
reported,  Pieri  was  stopping  in  company  with  another 
individual.  As  I  state  nothing  in  this  record  of  my  life 
that  is  not  strictly  correct,  I  here  reproduce  textually 
the  proces-verbal  which  I  wrote  on  the  spot,  and  which 
is  now  in  the  archives  of  the  Prefecture. 

[This  document,  which  is  long  and  wordy,  and  full 
of  minute  details  that  add  little  to  the  main  story,  need 
not  be  reproduced  here.  It  is  enough  to  say  that  M. 
Claude  arrested  the  companion  of  Pieri,  a  Portuguese, 
named  Da  Silva.] 

While  I  was  arresting  Da  Silva  at  the  Hotel  de 
France  et  de  Champagne,  a  waiter  at  the  Broggi  res- 
taurant, directly  opposite  to  the  Opera  House,  found 
a  pistol  under  a  staging,  and  close  beside  the  staging 
a  wounded  man.  On  being  questioned,  the  man  said 
his  name  was  Swiney ;  that  he  was  the  servant  of  an 
Englishman,  Mr.  Allsop,  living  in  the  rue  Monthabor, 
No.  10. 

The  true  name  of  Swiney  was  Gomez,  the  so-called 


114  MEMOIRS   OF 

Allsop  was  Orsini,  and  the  Portuguese,  Da  Silva,  was 
named  Rudio. 

Thus  the  performance  at  the  Opera  was  not  con- 
cluded before  the  police  had  under  arrest  all  the  actors 
in  this  bloody  tragedy.  While  the  Emperor  appeared 
to  follow  with  a  calm  and  tranquil  eye  the  scene  upon 
the  stage,  wiping  off  now  and  then  a  few  drops  of 
blood  that  trickled  from  his  slight  wound,  he  was  re- 
ceiving summaries  of  our  reports  from  his  officers.  He 
could  not  then  fail  to  see  that  the  conspiracy  was 
hatched  by  Italian  Carbonari,  with  whom  he  himself 
had  been  affiliated  since  1830. 

How  was  it,  then,  that  Orsini,  Mazzini's  lieutenant, 
had  been  sent  from  London  to  commit  this  crime  at  the 
very  moment  when  the  Emperor  was  arranging  with  the 
great  chief  of  the  Carbonari  to  devote  himself,  with  them, 
to  the  deliverance  of  Italy  ?  Could  there  be  schism  among 
the  Carbonari  ?  Had  they  as  little  confidence  in  Louis 
Bonaparte's  oath,  as  the  leaders  of  the  French  demo- 
cracy had  when  he  swore  his  oath  to  the  Republic.'^ 
There  lay  the  mysterious  point  of  this  frightful  crime. 

At  this  epoch,  Mazzini  had  greatly  displeased  many 
of  his  partisans  by  accepting  the  alliance  of  Napoleon  III, 
who  had  betrayed  them,  with  Victor  Emmanuel ;  the 
latter  seeking  to  free  Italy  only  to  become  himself  its 
king. 

Karl  Marx,  in  the  name  of  the  German  socialists, 
caring  little  or  nothing  for  Italy,  and  Bakounine,  the 
Russian  nihilist,  who  was  always  protesting  against  the 
Mazzinian  mysticism,  worked  themselves  up  to  such 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  115 

a  point  over  the  chiefs  decision  that  they  parted  from 
him. 

Orsini,  the  right  hand  of  the  Patriarch  of  the  Inter- 
national, angered  by  seeing  his  country  doomed  to 
monarchy,  took  the  same  course  as  Marx  and  Bakou- 
nine.  He  put  himself  at  the  head  of  a  group  of  Car- 
bonari and  Internationalists  to  resist  Mazzini. 

Orsini  first  concerted,  with  the  Italian  Princess, 
a  scheme  for  abducting  the  Emperor  from  the  house 

of  Mme.  X at  Auteuil.  When  that  scheme  failed, 

Orsini,  who  had  taken  refuge  in  London,  turned  his 
mind  to  the  project  of  assassination : 

"We  were  convinced,"  he  said,  at  his  trial,  "that 
the  surest  means  of  making  a  revolution  in  Italy,  was 
to  produce  one  in  France ;  and  that  the  surest  means 
of  producing  one  in  France  was  to  kill  the  Emperor." 

After  consulting  with  Fieri,  who  made  Gomez  and 
Rudio  known  to  him,  Orsini,  chivalrous  by  nature  and 
trained  in  the  Mazzinian  school,  perceived  that  these 
accomplices  were  common  rascals,  incapable  of  com- 
prehending his  aspirations.  He  then  spoke  of  his  pro- 
jects to  an  Englishman  named  Thomas  Allsop,  and  to 
a  French  refugee  in  London  named  Simon  Bernard. 
Allsop  (whose  name  Orsini  took  later)  was  an  ardent 
Chartist,  and  the  intimate  friend  of  Robert  Owen,  the 
socialist.  As  for  Simon  Bernard,  he  was  a  fanatic,  who, 
like  Karl  Marx  and  Bakounine,  dreamed  of  regenerat- 
ing society  by  a  radical  transformation. 

From  this  combination  of  these  adversaries  of  tyr- 
anny sprang  the  savage  idea  of  explosive  bombs.  They 


ii6  MEMOIRS   OF 

were  to  be  called  "Orsini  bombs,"  because  that  lover  of 
the  Princess  felt  himself  in  honour  bound  to  assume  the 
whole  responsibility  of  a  crime  inspired  by  his  love  for 
the  country  which  was  his  and  hers. 

Gomez  has  told  how  this  new  association  of  regicides 
was  formed.  Meeting  Orsini  and  Bernard  in  a  London 
street,  Gomez  invited  them  to  come  the  next  day  to  his 
lodgings  in  Grafton  Street.  "  During  this  visit,"  adds 
Gomez,  "  Orsini  remarked  to  Allsop,  Simon  Bernard, 
Fieri,  and  me  that  the  Frophet  (the  name  given  to 
Mazzini)  was  losing  his  vigour;  that  his  enterprises 
ended  only  in  getting  men  uselessly  shot.  He  then 
told  us  of  certain  explosive  bombs  which  he  had  or- 
dered in  Birmingham  by  the  assistance  of  the  English- 
man Allsop.  He  said  he  had  got  the  idea  in  Belgium 
where  he  had  seen,  in  a  museum,  bombs  of  the  same 
kind  made  in  1854  for  the  purpose  of  killing  the  Em- 
peror. He  ended  by  saying  that  the  explosion  of  these 
bombs  would  be  fireworks  let  off  in  honour  of  the  tri- 
umph of  a  Universal  Republic.  Bernard,  the  '  clubist,' 
who  travelled  constantly  from  Germany  to  Belgium,  was 
to  inform  the  secret  committees  of  France,  Italy,  and 
Belgium  of  the  exact  moment  when  the  bombs  would 
be  thrown  in  order  to  envelop  with  a  like  deed  all  sup- 
porters of  tyranny." 

Thus,  as  it  will  be  seen,  Mazzini  was  not  in  the  plot. 
He  could  not  be  —  he  who  accepted  an  alliance  with 
crowned  parvenus  and  constitutional  kings  for  the 
purpose  of  arriving,  by  slow  but  sure  steps,  at  a  Uni- 
versal Republic. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  n; 

Mazzini,  by  his  intellect,  was  infinitely  superior  to 
the  lovers  of  liberty  who  surrounded  him.  He  was 
never  what  common  minds  have  made  him  —  an  apostle 
of  murder.  He  has  condemned  in  his  writings  the  errors 
of  our  first  Revolution,  which,  in  supporting  itself  by 
terror,  gave  birth  to  the  most  odious  of  despotisms  — 
military  despotism.  Although  Mazzini  did  too  often 
threaten  with  a  dagger  princes  who  had  risen,  like 
Napoleon  III,  on  the  shields  of  a  mysterious  army,  he 
did  so  only  when  excited  to  irritation  by  his  overpower- 
ing love  for  humanity,  whose  cause  such  princes  were 
betraying  while  pretending  to  defend  it.  He  had  no 
more  dangerous  enemies  than  his  brother  Carbonari, 
for  Mazzini  detested  atheism.  Yet  Bakounine,  his 
adversary,  said  of  him : 

"  He  has  the  gift  of  entering  the  souls  of  all  who 
approach  him,  warming  them  by  the  beams  of  his  in- 
tellect, by  his  glance  at  once  serious  and  gentle,  and 
his  shrewd  but  melancholy  smile.  Whoever  sees  and 
listens  to  him  lets  his  mind  and  his  heart  be  captured 
willingly.  Never  thinking  of  himself,  always  of  those 
who  come  to  tell  him  of  their  wrongs,  Mazzini  compels 
the  confidence  even  of  those  who  are  most  distrustful, 
and  the  return  to  him  of  all  who  have  alienated  them- 
selves from  him,  either  through  impatience  or  ambition. 
Such,  fundamentally,  is  this  terrible  revolutionist,  the 
founder  of  the  '  International,*  who  has  done  such 
harm,  and  will  do  more,  to  the  old  society." 

Mazzini  was  a  mystic ;  Orsini  a  fanatic.  The  latter 
desired,  like  the  new  dissenters  from  the  "  Interna- 


ii8  MEMOIRS   OF 

tional,"  an  immediate  Republic,  a  Republic  quandmeme. 
When  the  Patriarch  declared  in  favour  of  the  union  of 
Napoleon  III  with  Cavour  and  Victor  Emmanuel,  the 
rupture  between  himself  and  Orsini  took  place.  The 
latter  was  a  dangerous  dreamer,  like  other  would-be 
Seers,  who  ruin  their  cause  with  equal  clumsiness  and 
heroism.  The  Italian  Princess  who  was  devoted  to  him 
had  the  same  enthusiasm  of  nature  and  the  same  hero- 
ism. She  had  also  the  same  antipathy  to  Napoleon  III ; 
not  because  she  was,  Hke  Orsini,  republican,  but  be- 
cause, on  the  contrary,  she  desired,  as  an  Italian,  that 
the  House  of  Savoy  should  reign  over  the  whole  Pe- 
ninsula without  the  aid  of  foreign  intervention.  She 
wished,  like  Orsini,  that  Italy  should  make  herself; 
she  dreaded  the  bad  faith  of  the  Emperor,  and  foresaw 
that  he  would  fail  his  allies.  It  was  she  who  decided 
Orsini  to  detach  himself  from  the  Prophet,  when  the 
latter  arranged  with  Cavour  the  means  of  forcing  Napo- 
leon III  to  declare  war  upon  Austria. 

The  objections  which  the  patriotic  Princess  made  to 
Mazzini's  scheme  struck,  through  Orsini,  the  minds  of 
a  great  number  of  the  Carbonari.  The  excitement  was 
great  in  the  "  International,"  which  henceforth  worked 
under  the  orders  of  Orsini  and  without  reference  to  its 
founder  and  Patriarch.  Then  it  was  that  the  Princess, 
Orsini's  soul,  inspired  him  with  the  idea  of  abducting 
the  Emperor.  It  was  the  failure  of  that  abduction  which 
led  to  the  fatal  plot  of  the  Orsini  bombs. 

Mazzini  became  almost  abandoned.  He  resigned 
himself  quietly,  looking  afar.  The  short-sightedness  of 


V'£K'^  >/t'c  ^'W  ''i^y^^^^^i^i 


JOSEPH   MAZZINI 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  119 

his  late  followers  only  deepened  his  contempt  for  men. 
He  isolated  himself  like  a  god,  certain  that  his  judge- 
ments would  be  justified  sooner  or  later;  very  certain 
also  that  his  apostles,  who  had  departed  from  him  with 
sorrow,  would  return  to  him  as  soon  as  they  failed  in 
their  own  projects  and  had  seen  their  mistake. 

His  certainty  was  justified.  When  the  plot  of  the 
bombs  failed,  its  ill  success  arresting  the  social  move- 
ment and  giving  stronger  power  to  the  imperial  regime, 
Orsini  and  his  accomplices  comprehended  at  last  that 
in  order  to  triumph  it  is  not  enough  to  have  an  iron 
temperament ;  it  is  also  necessary  to  have,  like  Mazzini, 
the  nature  of  a  statesman.  Vanquished  in  both  plots, 
dragged  to  the  scaffold  for  not  having  listened  to 
Mazzini,  Orsini  surrendered  —  too  late  for  himself,  but 
not  for  his  cause  —  to  the  diplomatic  judgement  of  the 
Prophet. 

It  was  Mazzini  who,  conjointly  with  Napoleon  III 
and  Victor  Emmanuel,  dictated  to  Orsini  the  famous 
policy  letter,  in  which  the  relentless  enemy,  the  enemy 
quand  meme  of  the  Emperor,  was  made  to  say  that 
"  his  father  had  joyfully  shed  his  blood  for  Napoleon 
the  Great;  and  that  he  himself,  in  marching  to  the 
scaffold,  made  but  one  prayer,  namely,  that  His  Majesty, 
Napoleon  III,  would  deliver  his  country,  and  thus  secure 
for  himself  the  benedictions  of  twenty-five  millions  of 
citizens  throughout  posterity." 

Evidently  these  thoughts  could  not  be  those  of 
Orsini ;  they  were  dictated  to  him  by  the  subtile  Maz- 
zini, who,  himself,  did  not  believe  one  word  of  the 


I20  MEMOIRS   OF 

letter,  written  to  rouse  the  chauvinism  of  the  French 
people,  of  which,  in  the  interests  of  his  country,  he 
stood  so  much  in  need.  The  Italians  are  true  sons 
of  Macchiavelli.  Orsini's  letter,  read  before  the  judges 
by  his  counsel,  Jules  Favre,  with  permission  of  the 
Emperor,  was  a  veritable  triumph  for  the  defender 
of  the  foreign  regicide,  by  which  he  profited  to  spread 
before  an  excited  public,  eager  for  liberty,  a  profusion 
of  the  finest  flowers  of  rhetoric  —  all  poisonous. 

Orsini,  by  way  of  recompense,  left,  in  his  will,  the 
sum  of  eight  hundred  francs  for  a  watch  which  the  Ital- 
ian Princess  purchased  and  sent  to  Orsini's  defender 
with  inscription  graven  on  the  case : 

To  Monsieur  Jules  Favre,  Felice  Orsini 
Souvenirs 

I  was  witness  of  these  incidents,  being  stationed  in 
the  corridor  on  which  the  cells  of  persons  condemned 
to  death  open.  Orsini,  who  distrusted  the  very  walls  of 
his  cell,  carried  with  him  to  another  world  many  secrets 
concerning  the  murderous  attempt  of  January  14. 

I  think  I  have  now  said  enough  to  show  that  in  this 
bloody  tragedy  the  Emperor,  Mazzini,  Cavour,  and  Vic- 
tor Emmanuel  were  essentially  in  accord  with  Orsini 
to  expel  the  Austrian  oppressors  from  Italy.  If  Orsini 
paid  with  his  head  for  his  crime,  it  was  less  because 
he  had  aimed  at  Napoleon  III  and  shed  French  blood 
than  because  he  had  disobeyed  Mazzini,  his  Carbonaro 
brother.  This  tragedy,  which  alarmed  all  conservative 
France,  was,  in  the  end,  a  sort  of  comedy  played  be- 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  121 

tween  the  conspirators  and  the  princes.  The  Emperor, 
had  he  dared,  would  have  spared  Orsini's  life,  as  he 
did  spare  those  of  Rudio  and  Gomez.  But  in  vain  did 
the  Empress  persuade  the  Emperor  to  have  mercy, 
calling  to  her  aid  the  Archbishop  of  Paris ;  Marshal 
Pelissier,  in  private  conference,  showed  the  sovereign 
that  here  was  a  case  in  which  he  had  "  not  the  right  of 
pardon."  In  a  speech  full  of  plain  common  sense,  the 
Marshal  proved  to  the  Emperor  that  this  right  was 
withdrawn  from  him  in  a  case  where  French  blood  had 
been  shed  on  his  behalf  by  regicides. 

On  the  13th  of  March,  1858,  the  scaffold  was  erected 
for  the  two  men.  Orsini  and  Fieri,  barefooted,  swathed 
in  black  veils,  the  veil  of  parricides,  were  exposed  on 
the  scaffold,  while  a  clerk  read  to  the  assembled  people 
the  sentence  of  condemnation.  Fieri  went  first  to  exe- 
cution. He  died  noisily,  repeating  in  a  jerky,  stammer- 
ing voice,  the  Chant  des  Girondins.  Orsini  came  after 
him,  calm,  silent,  uttering  two  sentences  only:  Vive  la 
France  !  Viva  Italia  I  He  died,  as  he  had  always  lived, 
fearlessly. 

The  Billault  Ministry  fell  with  the  regicides.  The 
Emperor  replaced  it  with  that  of  General  Espinasse. 
M.  Fietri  yielded  his  place  as  Prefect  of  Police  to 
M.  Boitelle,  an  ex-captain  of  lancers. 

As  for  me,  when  chance  and  the  information  derived 

from  Mme.  X enabled  me  to  play  so  active  a  part 

in  the  capture  of  the  conspirators,  I  became  a  hero 
among  the  staff  of  the  Chateau ;  I  stood  even  higher 
than  the  Corsicans.    It  depended  only  on  my  own  will 


122  MEMOIRS   OF 

whether  I  should  be  specially  attached  to  the  person  of 
His  Majesty,  and  take  the  place  of  Baron  Griscelli,  dis- 
missed, like  my  Prefect,  in  consequence  of  the  Orsini 
affair.  But  I  refused  all  employment  which  might  com- 
promise my  independence  and  give  me  a  party  character, 
which  my  adversaries,  however,  did  not  fail  to  give  me, 
under  the  Commune,  to  satisfy  their  hatred  and  rancour. 

I  contented  myself  by  accepting,  in  1859,  as  a  reward 
for  my  services,  the  position  of  Chief  of  Police  [chefde  la 
police  de  surete,  i.  e,  the  criminal  and  detective  police]. 
This  situation,  on  account  of  my  tastes,  my  tempera- 
ment, and  my  character,  was  to  be,  I  felt,  the  culmina- 
tion of  my  career. 

As  a  result  of  the  various  negotiations  that  I  had  on 
this  subject  with  the  Bacciochi  and  the  Hyrvoix,  I  came 
to  know  the  famous  cabinet  noir  (called  chambre  noire 
during  the  Empire),  which,  under  the  other  reigns,  was 
never  so  near  the  throne  as  it  now  was.  In  spite  of 
the  burning  of  the  Tuileries,  there  can  still  be  seen,  on 
the  side  towards  the  quay  and  next  to  the  new  Louvre, 
a  small  tower  standing  back  from  the  angle  of  the 
pavilion  of  the  palace.  It  was  by  a  staircase  in  that 
tower  that  the  Corsicans,  the  Alessandris,  and  the  Gris- 
cellis,  attached  to  the  person  of  His  Majesty,  went  up 
to  the  chambre  noire  under  instructions  from  M.  La- 
grange (Chief  of  the  Political  Police),  from  the  Prefect, 
and  from  the  Minister  of  the  Interior.  The  Italian  Prin- 
cess, the  Prussian  Duchess,  and  Mme.  X often  took 

the  same  way;  and  so,  likewise,  did  Orsini's  sister  after 
the  attempt  of  January  14, 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  123 

It  was  by  that  staircase  that  I,  too,  went  to  tell  the 
chamberlains  of  His  Majesty  that  my  ambition  was  not 
to  take  the  place  of  those  who,  In  the  affair  of  the 
bombs,  had  so  ill-guarded  the  Emperor.  It  was  after 
having  thus  been  in  the  chambre  noire  that  I  passed 
through  the  Tuileries  to  Install  myself  as  officer  of  the 
peace  at  the  Prefecture  of  Police. 

From  that  period  a  new  career  was  opened  to  me, 
full  of  dramatic  incidents  due  to  the  celebrated  thieves 
and  assassins  which  my  duty  required  me  to  hunt 
down  before  delivering  them  over  to  the  assizes. 


CHAPTER  IX 

BERANGER— HIS    FUNERAL 


IN  1857,  while  I  was  still  commissary  at  Menilmon- 
tant  and  at  the  theatres,  political  refugees,  who 
dreamed  of  vengeance  for  December,  kept  the  fau- 
bourgs in  a  state  of  unrest.  The  police  of  M.  Lagrange 
were  worn  out  tracking  from  London  to  Paris  the  emis- 
saries of  Mazzini  and  Ledru-Rollin. 

At  this  period,  which  was  scarcely  a  year  before  the 
catastrophe  at  the  Opera,  a  so-called  refugee,  in  other 
words  a  police  spy,  the  daily  companion  of  Ledru-Rol- 
lin, came  from  London  to  Paris  to  inform  the  Prefect- 
ure that  Beranger  having  just  died,  the  London  com- 
mittees had  dispatched  delegates  with  orders  to  turn 
the  funeral  of  the  national  poet  into  a  great  popular 
manifestation.  In  my  quality  as  commissary  of  the 
quarter  in  which  these  delegates  were  to  act,  I  was 
charged  with  the  duty  of  seeing  that  the  respectful 
homage  which  France  desired  to  pay  to  the  poet  of 
the  Republic  and  the  Empire  did  not  degenerate  into 
a  collision,  as  the  victims  of  December  fondly  hoped. 

I,  who  had  known  Beranger  personally  under  rather 
singular  circumstances,  knew  how  he  dreaded  the  noise 
of  his  fame.   I  therefore  determined  to  take  every  care 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  125 

that  the  legitimate  homage  of  the  people  for  their  poet 
should  not  be  degraded  by  a  scandal. 

I  must  here  tell  how  it  was  I  came  to  know  Beran- 
ger.  Not  long  before  his  death  I  was  summoned  to  the 
central  office  and  ordered  to  search  for  an  escaped 
prisoner  whom  I  had  arrested  six  months  earlier.  He 
was  a  very  clever  swindler  who  claimed  to  be  a  mer- 
chant and  broker.  After  establishing  several  brokerage 
offices,  where  he  obtained  thousands  of  francs  from  ig- 
norant and  credulous  persons  under  pretence  of  invest- 
ment, he  was  condemned  to  three  years'  imprisonment. 
The  scamp  had  now  managed  to  escape.  Information 
was  sent  to  me  from  the  central  office  that  he  had  re- 
turned to  Paris  and  was  junketing  in  the  Latin  quarter 
as  a  rich  student  and  consorting  with  very  questionable 
ladies  at  Bullier's  and  the  Cafe  Mazarin. 

As  I  had  known  my  individual  for  a  long  time  and 
had  not  forgotten  either  his  face  or  his  general  appear- 
ance, I  assured  my  colleagues  that  I  should  easily  find 
him. 

"  Take  care,"  replied  the  central  commissary,  smiling, 
"that  rascal  is  very  clever;  he  has  as  many  tricks  in  his 
bag  as  a  monkey.  Don't  sell  your  bear's  grease  before 
you  have  killed  your  bear." 

This  remark  put  me  on  my  mettle.  I  was  accus- 
tomed to  trust  chiefly  to  myself  in  all  difficult  arrests, 
and  I  now  resolved,  out  of  vanity,  to  rely  on  my  own 
experience,  and  personally  to  capture  the  scamp  who, 
so  far,  had  eluded  the  police  and  defied  the  magistracy. 
One  evening,  on  receiving  certain  information,  I  went 


126  MEMOIRS   OF 

alone  to  the  Closerie  des  Lilas  at  the  hour  when  the 
dancing  is  at  its  height.  I  had  no  difficulty  in  discover- 
ing my  man,  seated  among  a  swarm  of  pretty  girls  and 
bewitching  danseuses,  whom  I  knew  to  be  the  beauties 
most  in  vogue  in  the  Latin  quarter. 

Convinced  that  there  are  but  two  ways  of  getting  the 
better  of  a  cunning  enemy  —  surprise  and  audacity 
—  I  walked  straight  to  where  my  rascal  was  seated. 
I  walked  slowly,  with  steady  steps,  my  eyes  on  the  eyes 
of  my  man.  He  was  a  dark-skinned,  handsome  fellow, 
with  a  face  as  brazen  as  it  was  cynical.  I  saw  by  an 
imperceptible  sign  that  he  recognized  me.  He  turned 
pale  —  he  was  mine ! 

I  was  almost  near  enough  to  capture  him,  when  I 
saw  him  bend  to  the  ear  of  one  of  his  companions. 
Instantly  all  the  girls  surrounded  me  and  stood  in 
a  feverish,  excited,  ardent  phalanx  before  me.  They 
formed  an  impenetrable  barrier  behind  which  my  rascal 
escaped,  while  the  whole  swarm  of  beauties  pressed 
eagerly  upon  me,  crying  out : 

"  Beranger !    It  is  Beranger !  " 

That  magic  name  produced  upon  the  youthful  spirits 
there  present  the  effect  of  an  electric  spark.  All  the 
dancers  of  the  establishment  stopped  dancing  and  sur- 
rounded me  with  acclamations ;  the  students,  the  young 
girls  rushed  from  the  groves,  some  bearing  bouquets, 
others  glass  in  hand.  I  was  literally  covered  with 
flowers,  while  the  whole  place  rang  with  shouts,  a  hun- 
dred times  repeated,  of  Vive  Beranger  !  Vive  Beranger  / 

I  was  aghast,  and  yet  I  understood  the  trick  of  my 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  127 

clever  scoundrel.  On  the  point  of  being  collared  by  me, 
he  had  recourse  to  this  shrewd  game,  which  must  have 
succeeded  even  better  than  he  expected.  I  certainly 
had  some  points  of  resemblance  to  the  illustrious  song- 
maker,  or  the  whole  world  of  students  and  grisettes  in 
the  Latin  quarter  would  not  have  fallen  so  readily  into 
his  trap.  I  was  as  bald  as  the  poet  at  that  time ;  and  at 
all  times  I  have  had  a  certain  good-natured,  sympathetic 
benevolence  in  my  appearance,  such  as  the  portraits  of 
Beranger  show  to  this  day. 

Well !  if  the  youth  of  Paris  countersigned  the  inten- 
tional error  of  my  clever  scamp,  I  owed  it  to  my  resemb- 
lance to  the  poet.  Though  I  was  tricked,  I  was  well 
tricked.  It  was  not  for  me  to  own  to  these  young  giddy- 
pates  that  I  was  not  Beranger,  but  Claude  the  police- 
man, the  agent  of  all  the  prosecutors,  judges,  lawyers, 
who,  under  the  Restoration,  had  done  so  much  harm  to 
their  idol.  For  my  dignity,  as  well  as  for  that  of  the 
poet,  I  could  not  destroy  the  pedestal  that  this  brave 
and  gallant  youth  had  raised  to  its  hero.  I  escaped 
from  the  ovation,  which  was  becoming  delirious,  under 
an  avalanche  of  flowers,  and  while  the  orchestra  was 
playing,  in  my  honour,  the  well-known  air  of  Beranger  s 
"  Lisette." 

The  next  day  all  the  newspapers  related  the  visit  of 
Beranger  to  the  Closerie  des  Lilas,  "  The  poet  of  *  Li- 
sette  '  and  '  Fretillon '  had  gone  to  revive  his  genius," 
they  said,  "amid  the  youth  of  France."  As  for  me, 
I  took  good  care  not  to  relate  to  my  colleagues  the 
ovation    I   had   received  at  the   instigation   of  their 


128  MEMOIRS   OF 

shrewd  delinquent,  whom,  by  the  way,  I  captured  soon 
after. 

But  I  did  earnestly  desire  that  the  illustrious  song- 
writer, whose  character  I  respected  as  much  as  I  revered 
his  genius,  should  not  feel  insulted  by  the  misuse  of  his 
name.  Accordingly,  after  reading  the  articles  I  have 
mentioned  in  the  press,  I  called  at  his  house,  3  rue  de 
Vend6me,'now  rue  Berangen  I  asked  to  speak  with  him 
in  private,  not  sending  in  my  name,  because  I  thought 
that  Beranger  must  be  annoyed  by  this  ridiculous 
story,  told  in  all  the  newspapers,  and  might  refuse  to 
see  a  police  ofScer,  fearing  some  further  annoyance. 

I  was  received  by  an  old  man  with  bent  head  and 
a  shrewd  smile,  that  recalled  to  me  the  simple,  old- 
fashioned  countenance  I  had  seen  in  the  frontispieces 
of  his  various  works.  For  a  moment,  moved  by  this 
sight  of  the  poet  of  our  national  glories,  I  could  not 
speak.  Then  I  explained  the  purpose  of  my  visit ;  I  gave 
my  name,  and  related  the  successful  trick  by  which, 
like  the  ass  laden  with  relics,  I  had  been  compelled  to 
usurp  his  great  name ;  adding  that  I  had  now  come 
to  offer  my  excuses. 

At  this  the  old  man  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter 
with  such  gusto  that  my  idol  fell  shivered  from  the 
pedestal  on  which  I  had  long  placed  it.  Evidently 
my  face  betrayed  displeasure  at  this  hilarity,  which 
seemed  to  me  almost  offensive,  for  the  good  man  sud- 
denly checked  it,  and  said : 

"My  dear  sir,  I  am  no  more  Beranger  than  you 
were.    If  I  take  his  place  and  receive  his  visitors  occa- 


PIERRE     JEAN    DE    BERANGER 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  129 

sionally,  it  is  to  save  him  from  importunate  persons, 
coming  from  all  parts  of  France,  who  assume  the  right 
to  force  themselves  upon  him  on  the  pretext  of  pre- 
senting their  homage." 

"  Then,  may  I  ask  who  you  are  ? "  I  said,  still  rather 
displeased. 

"  Benjamin  Antier,"  he  replied. 

"  The  author  of  '  Robert  Macaire '.? " 

"  Precisely,"  he  answered.  "  You  will  easily  under- 
stand that  no  one  could  live  fifty  years  with  a  friend, 
sharing  his  tastes  and  his  solitude,  without  acquiring 
something  of  his  personal  appearance." 

He  said  no  more,  but  went  to  the  door  of  the  next 
room  and  called  his  friend. 

Beranger  entered,  leaning  on  the  arm  of  an  aged 
woman,  I  own  that  at  first  I  felt  a  certain  disenchant- 
ment on  beholding  a  decrepit  old  man,  with  tottering 
steps,  a  withered  face,  glaucous  eyes,  and  a  pendant 
lower  lip. 

But  presently,  athwart  these  ravages  of  age,  I  saw 
in  those  faded  eyes  a  poet's  gleam,  on  that  broad, 
bare  brow  a  pure,  serene  light  that  seemed  the  halo  of 
a  man  so  simple  and  so  great.  A  certain  majesty  was 
thus  imprinted  on  his  features,  worn  by  illness.  I  saw 
the  man  of  peace,  of  silence,  and  of  meditation ;  the 
man  averse  to  noise,  even  the  noise  of  his  own  fame ; 
living  a  wholly  interior  life,  declining  all  outward 
expansion  the  better  to  abide  in  the  sweet  intimacy 
of  a  few  friends.  Time  had  now  left  him  but  two  of 
these — Benjamin  Antier,  the  first  and  last  companion 


I30  MEMOIRS   OF 

of  his  studies  and  his  pleasures,  with  whom  he  wrote 
his  first  song;  and  Mme.  Judith,  his  last  Lisette,  his 
Bo7ine  Vieille,  the  inspirer  of  his  last  poem : 

You  will  age,  my  tender  mistress, 
You  must  age,  and  I  must  die ; 
Time  for  me,  with  its  cruel  swiftness, 
Goes  twice  as  fast  as  in  days  gone  by. 
When  the  languor  of  years  o'ertakes  you. 
To  my  lessons  still  be  true  ;  — 
Dear  old  friend  !  in  your  chimney  comer 
Repeat  the  songs  that  I  sang  to  you. 

Eyes  will  seek  beneath  your  wrinkles 
The  lovely  face  that  inspired  my  song ; 
Youth,  in  its  eagerness,  pressing  round  you. 
Will  say  :  "  Who  was  he  she  has  wept  so  long  ?  " 
Tell  them  then  of  my  love  and  its  ardour. 
Its  doubts,  its  fears,  and  its  passion  true,  — 
Dear  old  friend  !  in  your  chimney  corner. 
Sing  them  the  songs  that  I  made  for  you. 

When  they  say  to  you  :  "  Was  he  kind  ? " 
I  hear  you  answer  :  "  I  loved  him  so  ! " 
"  Was  he  unfaithful  in  heart  or  mind  ?  " 
Proudly  your  lips  will  ring  out :  "  No  ! " 
Ah  !  tell  the  young  of  his  joyous  zither, 
Tender  and  sensitive,  loving  and  true,  — 
Dear  old  friend  !  in  your  chimney  corner 
Sing  them  the  songs  that  I  sang  to  you. 

You,  whom  I  taught  to  weep  for  France, 

Say  to  the  sons  of  her  latest  fame. 

That  I  sang  her  glory,  the  glory  of  France, 

To  comfort  and  help  her  in  days  of  shame. 

Call  to  their  minds  the  terrible  blast 

That  carried  our  laurels  the  wide  world  through, — 

Then,  old  friend  !  in  your  chimney  corner 

Sing  them  the  songs  that  I  sang  to  you. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  131 

Dear,  cherished  heart !  when  my  futile  fame 
Soothes  the  pain  of  declining  years, 
When  your  feeble  hands  my  portrait  frame 
With  flowers  that  bloom  in  spite  of  tears, 
Lift  jjur  eyes  to  the  unseen  world, 
Where  we  shall  be  one  who  now  are  two,  — 
Dear  old  friend  !  in  your  chimney  corner 
Repeat  the  songs  I  have  sung  to  you.^ 

When  I  explained  to  Beranger  the  object  of  my 
visit,  asking  him  humbly  if  I  should  correct  the  mis- 
take of  the  newspapers,  caused  by  the  trick  of  my 
rascal,  he  replied,  in  a  sweet,  sympathetic  voice : 

"Ah,  monsieur!  why  undeceive  the  young?  Dis- 
illusion comes  soon  enough.  We,  ourselves,  do  we 
not  live  to  our  last  hour  in  errors  ?  They  were  happy, 
those  young  people,  in  believing  that  they  saw  me. 
Leave  them  in  that  error.  They  will  know  too  many 
more  before  they  die." 

I  left  him.  He  bowed  to  me,  like  a  patriarch  blessing 
a  man  whom  he  sees  for  the  first  and  last  time  at  the 
close  of  his  career. 

This  visit  to  Beranger  —  his  fading  eyes,  his  totter- 
ing steps  supported  by  his  bonne  vieille  —  affected  me 
deeply.  When,  therefore,  on  the  occasion  of  his  death, 
the  democratic  party  sought  to  make  him  a  brand  of 
discord  to  provoke  a  riot,  I  took  strong  measures  to 
protect  his  funeral.  The  Emperor  sent  his  carriages 
and  his  household  guard,  with  loaded  rifles ;  and  I 
warned  my  strong  force  of  police  to  watch  each  cor- 
poration of  workmen,  as  it  marched  with  banners  flying, 
and  prevent  them  from  breaking  the  line  of  the  guard. 

*  A  liberal,  not  a  literal,  translation. 


132  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

I,  myself,  mingled  with  the  crowd  and  soon  discov- 
ered under  many  an  "International"  blouse,  wreathed 
with  immortelles^  a  Mazzinian  dagger.  As  we  neared 
the  canal  Saint-Martin,  I  perceived  that  the  crowd 
was  swelling  more  and  more,  and  trying,  by  advancing 
single  file,  to  surround  the  hearse.  An  inspiration  then 
came  to  me  which  I  communicated  to  the  officers  of 
the  guard,  who,  seeing  the  critical  position  in  which 
the  delegates  from  the  London  committees  were  striv- 
ing to  place  them,  accepted  it  eagerly. 

The  guard  held  back  the  crowd  at  the  narrow 
entrance  to  the  bridge,  and  the  moment  the  hearse  had 
passed  the  centre  of  it,  they  swung  the  drawbridge 
open.  Thus  the  way  to  Pere-Lachaise  was  clear  to 
none  but  Beranger  himself,  his  friends,  and  the  car- 
riages and  guards  of  the  Emperor.  The  London  com- 
mittees were  foiled,  and  the  poet  was  buried  as  he  had 
lived  —  in  silence  and  serenity,  far  from  the  noise  of 
even  his  own  glory. 


CHAPTER  X 

JUD,   THE  MYSTERIOUS  ASSASSIN   OF  A 
JUDGE  OF  THE  IMPERIAL  COURT 


IN  i860,  imperial  France  was  happy — apparently. 
Our  conquests  in  Italy,  giving  us  Nice  and  a  part 
of  Savoy,  lent  the  Empire  a  prestige  that  dazzled 
common  minds.  It  was  not,  however,  necessary  to  be 
a  great  seer  to  perceive  that  each  step  forward  in  the 
haphazard  policy  of  an  emperor  of  expedients  brought 
him  one  step  nearer  to  his  fall. 

One  cannot  give  to  others  what  one  denies  to  one's 
self.  The  Emperor,  by  killing  in  France  the  liberty  on 
which  he  had  risen,  could  not  labour  seriously  for  the 
independence  of  other  nations.  The  prestige  which,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  people,  shone  around  the  self-interested 
supporters  of  the  December-trap,  excited  only  envy 
in  foreign  countries,  particularly  in  Prussia.  Prussia 
had  already  stopped  our  Emperor  in  Italy.  In  i860, 
the  Prussian  Chancellor,  who  owed  his  European  au- 
thority, in  the  first  instance,  to  the  policy  of  Napoleon 
III,  was  working,  out  of  hatred  for  the  latter,  not  to 
give  him,  as  did  Victor  Emmanuel,  a  share  of  the  cake. 
Bismarck  was  waiting,  on  the  contrary,  for  the  hour 
when  he  could  get  Alsace  away  from  him,  in  defiance 


134  MEMOIRS   OF 

of  the  duties  of  gratitude  which  obliged  him  to  return 
to  France  her  former  Rhine  provinces  in  acknowledge- 
ment of  the  services  which  Napoleon  III,  by  his  atti- 
tude towards  Austria,  had  rendered  to  King  William. 
But  in  diplomacy,  gratitude  is  a  puerile  word,  void  of 
meaning,  especially  to  Prince  Bismarck. 

Towards  the  end  of  i860,  the  most  prosperous  and 
flourishing  period  of  the  imperial  reign,  a  great  crime 
darkened  its  horizon  with  a  heavy  cloud  that  alarmed 
even  the  most  enthusiastic  upholders  of  the  new  re- 
gime. This  crime  was  the  first  thunder-bolt,  the  first 
mysterious  protestation,  falling  upon  that  imperial 
world,  to  remind  it  of  its  bloody  and  baneful  origin. 
A  magistrate,  a  judge  of  the  Imperial  Court,  and  very 
devoted  to  the  Emperor,  M.  Poinsot,  was  assassinated 
in  a  railway  carriage  on  the  Eastern  Railroad  by  a  man 
named  Jud,  an  Alsatian  and  a  native  of  the  Upper 
Rhine. 

The  assassin,  travelling  alone  at  night  with  the  judge, 
had  been  able  to  do  the  deed  and  escape  from  the  car- 
riage without  leaving  any  trace  of  himself.  It  was  not 
until  the  train  reached  Paris  that  the  compartment  in 
which  M.  Poinsot  travelled  was  opened  and  his  body 
discovered.  The  facts,  so  far  as  known,  were  immedi- 
ately sent  to  the  Prefecture,  and  confided  to  me  as 
chief  of  the  criminal  and  detective  police.  I  was  sum- 
moned to  the  office  of  the  Imperial  Procureur  [prose- 
cutor] and  ordered  by  the  Prefect  to  put  all  my 
agents  and  myself  at  work  to  discover  the  unknown 
murderer. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  135 

This  order  was  given  to  me  on  the  loth  of  December, 
the  murder  having  been  committed  on  the  night  of  the 
5th  and  6th.  Thus  the  murderer  had  ample  time  to 
escape  detection.  When  the  body  was  discovered,  the 
brain  exuded  on  all  sides.  The  murderer  had  fired  two 
shots  from  a  revolver,  one  taking  effect  in  the  temple  and 
coming  out  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  head ;  the  other 
near  the  heart,  but  this  ball  was  found  in  the  clothes. 
Judging  by  the  articles  that  were  evidently  missing, 
robbery  appeared  to  be  the  motive  of  the  crime,  the 
criminal  himself  remaining  a  myth. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  seemed  as  though  a  certain  re- 
lation must  have  existed  between  the  murderer  and  the 
victim.  From  the  way  in  which  the  wounds  were  given 
it  was  evident  that  the  murderer,  before  committing 
the  crime,  had  held  the  judge  in  his  power,  and  that 
the  two  must  have  had  some  intercourse  during  the 
night.  What  could  have  been  the  nature  of  that  con- 
versation between  a  miserable  assassin  and  a  person- 
age of  so  much  importance  as  M.  Poinsot.f^  Here  was 
a  mystery.  There  was  no  doubt  that  the  criminal  was 
very  inferior  in  position  to  the  judge,  for  on  the  seat 
beside  the  body  they  found  a  muffler,  evidently  left 
by  the  murderer,  of  a  kind  that  is  not  worn  in  France. 
This  muffler  and  a  very  common  snuff-box,  also  left  in 
the  carriage,  were  valuable  indications  for  me,  but  the 
only  ones. 

Could  it  be  that  M.  Poinsot,  who  was  not  known  to 
have  an  enemy,  could  he  be  the  victim  of  a  bloody  ill 
will,  of  an  odious  vengeance  ?   Here  was  another  pro- 


136  MEMOIRS    OF 

blem  to  add  to  the  rest.  M.  Poinsot  was  in  great  favour 
and  the  most  respected  of  all  the  magistrates.  No  one 
held  higher  than  he  a  sense  of  the  duties  and  respons- 
ibilities attached  to  the  function  of  judging  others. 
Very  much  liked  at  the  Chateau,  he  owed  the  wel- 
come he  received  at  Court  to  the  uprightness  of  his 
character. 

He  had  been  in  his  present  position,  as  judge  of  the 
Imperial  Court,  eight  years,  when  on  a  Saturday,  taking 
advantage  of  Sunday  being  a  holiday,  he  went  to  his 
country-seat  in  the  department  of  the  Aube,  to  receive 
his  rents.  Having  done  so,  he  started  to  return,  as  I 
have  said,  by  the  Eastern  Railroad.  On  the  arrival  of 
the  train  in  Paris  his  dead  body,  still  warm,  was  found. 

Consternation  was  general.  It  was  shown  even  by 
the  crowd  in  the  streets  when  the  funeral  of  this  great 
magistrate  took  place  at  the  Church  of  Saint-Louis 
d'Antin.  Out  of  respect  to  a  colleague  whose  honoured 
life  had  ended  in  so  tragic  a  manner,  all  the  judges  of 
the  fourth  chamber,  wearing  their  robes,  together  with 
other  high  officials,  accompanied  the  coffin.  After  the 
religious  services,  the  body  was  taken  to  the  Eastern 
Railroad,  and  conveyed  to  Chaource,  the  estate  M. 
Poinsot  had  visited  so  recently.  All  our  noted  lawyers, 
even  those  in  the  ranks  of  the  Opposition,  made  it  a 
matter  of  duty  to  accompany  the  remains  of  a  man  who 
stood  high  among  all  parties  for  the  loftiness  of  his 
mind  and  the  importance  of  his  office.  Jules  Favre 
and  Berryer  were  among  them. 

As  the  partisan  spirit  does  not  disarm  even  before 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  137 

an  open  grave,  Jules  Favre  said  to  Berryer,  who  was 
beside  him  ; 

"  This  is  what  it  costs  to  stand  too  well  with  the 
Chateau." 

I  was  in  the  funeral  procession,  and  I  overheard 
those  words.  I  was  there,  I  must  own,  less  to  do  honour 
to  the  deceased  than  to  gather  the  remarks  of  those 
who  knew  M.  Poinsot,  and  thus  obtain,  if  possible, 
some  clue  as  to  the  cause  of  the  murder.  I  put  myself 
intentionally  among  his  political  adversaries,  because 
I  knew  by  experience  that  it  is  not  the  friends  of  a 
dead  man  who  unveil  the  secrets  of  his  life. 

Lucky  for  me  that  I  mingled  with  the  group  around 
Jules  Favre  and  heard  those  bitter  words  of  the  bitter- 
est of  our  lawyers !  They  were  to  me  a  flash  of  light. 
They  sent  a  gleam  upon  this  affair  into  which  I  could 
not  see  clearly,  even  after  my  multitudinous  inves- 
tigations along  the  line  of  the  Eastern  Railway.  In 
vain  had  I  sent  my  agents  right  and  left  from  every 
station  along  that  road.  Not  one  of  them  reported 
anything  that  gave  even  a  clue  to  the  murderer.  It 
was  plain  that  the  latter,  after  committing  the  crime, 
had  jumped  from  the  carriage  to  the  track,  and  had 
done  so  hastily — the  muffler  and  the  snuff-box  left 
behind  him  proved  his  haste. 

But  how  could  a  man  jump  from  an  express  train, 
running  at  high  speed,  without  risking  his  life  or  break- 
ing his  legs.  The  body  of  his  victim  being  still  warm 
when  discovered  showed  that  the  crime  had  been  com- 
mitted near  Paris.   But  why  had  the  murderer  waited 


138  MEMOIRS   OF 

until  then  instead  of  profiting  by  the  time  when  the 
train  was  crossing  the  open  country? 

I  explained  to  myself  this  discordance  on  examining 
the  line.  The  man  must  have  jumped  from  the  carriage 
near  Noisy.  The  express  train  does  not  stop  at  Noisy, 
but  it  slackens  speed  there  sufficiently  to  allow  a  man 
to  jump  to  the  ground  without  breaking  his  legs.  Had 
the  assassin  made  for  Paris  ?  or  had  he  fled  through 
the  country  to  reach  the  province  of  which  he  was  a 
native  —  judging  by  the  muffler  made  in  a  Mulhausen 
factory,  and  by  the  snuff-box,  which  I  recognized  as 
a  product  of  the  region  of  the  Black  Forest  ? 

I  left  my  agents  exploring  the  most  suspicious  parts 
of  Paris,  searching  the  lodging-houses  and  pawn-shops, 
to  discover  some  traces  of  the  murderer,  while  I  my- 
self went,  as  I  have  said,  with  the  funeral  of  the  judge 
to  Chaource,  his  estate  in  the  country.  There  I  learned 
from  his  confidential  valet  that  on  the  Sunday  even- 
ing, as  M.  Poinsot  was  preparing  to  return  to  Paris, 
he  was  visited  by  an  individual  whom  the  servant  de- 
scribed to  me.  The  conversation  between  this  person 
and  M.  Poinsot  had  lasted  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  and 
the  servant  told  me  that  the  subject  of  it  must  have 
been  important  to  detain  his  master,  who  was  already 
in  a  hurry  to  get  to  the  train. 

I  was  now  on  the  scent  of  the  murderer.  Whence 
came  he?  From  Alsace,  no  doubt;  his  muffler  told 
that.  To  venture  to  present  himself  to  M.  Poinsot  and 
be  admitted,  being,  as  he  was,  a  very  common  man, 
showed  that  the  pretext  for  his  visit  was  serious.  That 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  139 

this  high  magistrate  should  spend  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
talking  to  a  poor  wretch  at  the  risk  of  losing  his  train 
showed  that  the  man  had  some  powerful  reason  that 
compelled  it.  The  words  of  Jules  Favre  came  suddenly 
back  to  me : 

"  This  is  what  it  costs  to  stand  well  with  the  Cha- 
teau." 

Yes,  politics  might,  perhaps,  have  something  to  do 
with  the  shocking  event.  Once  more  —  what  relations 
could  possibly  exist  between  this  important  personage 
and  this  unknown  man?  I  determined  to  solve  that 
mystery  in  the  first  place.  In  spite  of  the  grief  that 
overwhelmed  the  family,  I  decided  to  make  known  my 
name  and  mission  to  the  nearest  relatives.  From  them 
I  learned  that  M.  Poinsot  had  not  gone  to  Chaource 
solely  for  the  purpose  of  receiving  his  rents,  but  also 
to  obtain  certain  papers  which,  he  had  informed  them, 
concerned  the  Chateau. 

There  was  the  explanation  of  Jules  Favre's  words ! 
In  virtue  of  my  discretionary  powers,  I  opened  the 
strong-box  in  which  M.  Poinsot  habitually  kept  State 
papers,  which,  he  was  wont  to  say,  might  some  day  or 
other  be  useful  to  him  as  a  magistrate  and  serve  to 
throw  light  upon  the  more  obscure  affairs  of  the  Em- 
pire. In  addition  to  these  papers  he  kept  in  the  same 
box  the  money  he  received  in  banknotes  from  his  rents. 
When  the  strong-box  was  opened  there  was  nothing 
there ;  the  State  papers  as  well  as  the  banknotes  had 
been  removed ;  probably  M.  Poinsot  had  placed  them  in 
the  varnished  leather  bag  he  had  carried  in  his  hand. 


I40  MEMOIRS   OF 

That  bag,  having  been  taken  by  the  murderer,  was 
another  explanation  of  M.  Favre's  words.  The  robber- 
assassin  was  something  other  than  a  murderous  thief. 

I  returned  to  Paris  with  a  careful  description  of  the 
man,  whom  the  valet  had  had  time  to  examine  before 
M.  Poinsot  left  the  house.  I  made  my  report  to  the 
Prefect  and  then  proceeded  to  look  through  the  police 
registers.  I  had  already  recalled  the  fact  that  about  three 
months  earlier  a  deserter  from  the  3d  dragoon  regi- 
ment named  Jud,  had  committed  a  crime  similar  to 
that  committed  on  M.  Poinsot.  On  the  i8th  of  Septem- 
ber, i860,  this  Jud  had  killed  a  Russian  army  surgeon 
in  a  railway  carriage  between  Zilischeim  and  Ilfurth,  by 
shooting  him  through  the  head  with  a  revolver.  Being 
captured  in  his  native  town  of  Ferrette,  this  Jud  man- 
aged to  escape  by  knocking  down  three  of  the  gaolers. 
Since  then  the  police  had  been  unable  to  find  him,  but 
his  description  tallied  in  every  respect  with  that  given 
me  of  M.  Poinsot's  murderer.  Evidently  the  criminal  of 
Noisy  could  be  no  other  than  the  Jud  of  Ferrette. 

Not  a  day  had  passed  since  the  murder  that  reports 
of  his  discovery  were  not  sent  in  only  to  be  denied  be- 
fore night.  One  day  he  was  thought  to  be  found  at  Bar- 
le-Duc;  another  day  at  Bixheim,orat  Mulhausen,  or  at 
Troyes.  But  each  and  all  of  these  Juds  were  released 
as  soon  as  arrested.  The  public  was  beginning  to  con- 
sider Jud  as  a  will-o'-the-wisp,  scoffing  at  the  police ; 
and  as  for  us,  he  became  a  thorn  in  our  sides.  The 
Opposition  was  delighted  with  our  want  of  success. 
Unable  to  attack  the  Government  directly,  they  fell 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  141 

foul  of  its  subalterns ;  the  servants  were  thrashed  for 
the  masters.  Jud  was  the  rod  with  which  they  flayed 
the  Empire  in  the  persons  of  its  humblest  supporters. 
He  became  the  grotesque  incarnation  of  Imperialism, 
just  as  Robert  Macaire  and  Mayeux  had  personified 
Louis-Philippe. 

Weary  of  the  ill  success  of  my  agents,  I  resolved  to  go 
myself  to  Alsace  and  find  in  Jud's  own  region  indica- 
tions that  would  satisfy  me  better  than  those  I  received 
in  Paris.  I  informed  the  Prefect  and  the  examining  judge 
of  my  intention,  and  they  gave  me  carte  blanche.  Before 
starting  I  obtained  the  services  of  an  agent,  a  former 
non-commissioned  officer,  whose  courage  was  beyond  all 
doubt.  A  native  of  Alsace,  he  knew  the  country  well  and 
could  be  a  great  help  to  me  as  guide. 

I  also  paid  a  visit  to  the  clerk  of  the  examining  judge 
\juge  d* instruction]  to  tell  him  that  I  should  send  to 
him  daily  the  results  of  my  researches.  This  man,  also 
a  native  of  Alsace,  had  a  gift  of  penetration  coupled  with 
envy  which  he  artfully  concealed  under  an  appearance 
of  open-hearted  good-nature.  When  I  told  him  of  my 
journey  and  its  object,  he  looked  at  me  curiously  and 
said : 

"  May  you  never  repent  doing  what  has  never  been 
done  before  in  this  administration." 

A  doubt  crossed  my  mind,  and  I  regretted  having 
spoken  to  him  so  freely.  I  made  a  motion  that  did  not 
escape  his  subtle  observation,  and  he  added  with  an 
innocent  air: 
;    "Well,  a  good  journey  to  you.  Monsieur  Claude; 


142  MEMOIRS   OF 

may  you  be  rewarded  for  your  zeal,  which  will  hurt 
our  chiefs  —  but,  I  understand !  duty  before  every- 
thing. " 

I  started  for  Ferrette  [in  the  Upper  Rhine,  district  of 
Mulhausen]  accompanied  by  my  agent,  whom  I  knew  to 
be  a  determined  man.  I  was  aware,  through  the  police 
reports  of  those  regions,  that  the  German  frontier  was 
kept  agitated  and  stirred  up  by  Prussians.  But  what 
I  did  not  know  was  that  those  reports  were  far  below 
the  truth.  I  was  better  informed  by  the  time  I  reached 
Mulhausen.  Prussia,  envious  of  our  conquests,  was  ex- 
citing the  ancient  rancour  of  Protestants  against  Cath- 
olics with  a  view  to  a  revenge  which,  far  from  restoring 
to  us  the  Rhenish  provinces,  would  recover  from  us 
Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  throw  us  back  into  the 
critical  position  of  Louis  XIV,  when  expiating  in  his 
day  a  passage  of  the  Rhine. 

On  arriving  at  Mulhausen  with  my  agent,  we  were 
both  much  astonished  by  what  we  saw  and  heard.  The 
Italian  victories  excited  no  enthusiasm.  Outside  of  the 
official  world  I  found  a  population  concerned  only 
about  the  commercial  disturbance  caused  by  the  change 
of  frontier.  In  the  Upper  Rhine  religious  fanaticism 
was  being  roused  by  jealous  Prussia.  The  Protestants 
formed  a  band  apart  from  the  Catholics,  and  proclaimed 
themselves  openly  against  the  conquest  policy  of  the 
new  Empire.  Under  pretext  of  progress  and  of  human- 
ity, the  richest  Protestants  of  the  annexed  region  re- 
newed against  the  Catholics  the  old  feuds  of  the 
seventeenth  century.  They  pointedly  recalled  that  Mul- 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  143 

hausen  before  Louis  XIV  and  Napoleon  I  was  a  "free 
city."  I  could  see  in  these  politico-religious  divisions 
the  hand  of  Prussia  preparing  to  act  at  the  moment 
when  France,  exhausted,  could  not  sustain,  as  she  did 
under  Louis  XIV  and  Napoleon,  the  first  brilliant  on- 
slaught of  Prussian  arms. 

An  incident  to  which  I  did  not  at  the  moment  attach 
its  due  importance  opened  my  eyes  to  the  underground 
work  of  Prussia  in  Protestant  Alsace.  We  had  scarcely 
reached  Mulhausen,  when  my  agent,  a  Crimean  vet- 
eran, was  apostrophized  in  a  beer-shop  by  a  knot  of 
Baden  Protestants.  He  made  some  light  joke  in  reply 
to  the  remark  of  a  Baden  man,  supposing  that  all  the 
beer-drinkers  about  him  would  laugh  on  his  side.  Great 
was  his  amazement  when  he  perceived  that  the  Baden 
man  had  the  whole  gallery  with  him. 

This  man  was  an  officer.  He  challenged  my  man. 
The  latter  would  willingly  have  drawn  his  sword  on  the 
spot  had  not  the  duty  on  which  he  was  employed  for- 
bidden it.  An  appointment  was  made  for  the  next  day. 
As  we  were  to  leave  that  evening  for  Altkirch  and 
Ferrette  my  companion  thought  it  useless  to  inform 
the  officer's  seconds  that  his  position  as  a  police  officer 
forbade  his  accepting  a  challenge. 

When  he  told  me  of  this  unlucky  affair,  he  said  he 
had  noticed  that  this  German  had  kept  an  eye  on  him 
from  the  two  last  stations  before  reaching  Mulhausen, 
and  that  he  seemed  to  have  entered  the  beer-shop  in 
search  of  him.  I  had  myself  observed  the  same  thing; 
and  I  now  thought  it  was  high  time  to  get  away  from 


144  MEMOIRS   OF 

Mulhausen.  For  the  first  time,  the  words  of  the  Alsa- 
tian clerk  came  back  to  me: 

"  May  you  never  repent  your  zeal." 

For  the  first  time,  also,  since  approaching  the  fron- 
tiers of  Germany,  the  crime  committed  on  a  judge  of 
the  Imperial  Court  changed  in  aspect.  I  comprehended, 
after  seeing  the  spirit  of  the  population,  that  Jud 
might  have  been  something  else  than  a  mere  common 
murderer ;  namely,  a  spy  of  the  Prussian  Government. 
I  was  soon  to  be  convinced  of  it. 

We  started  from  Mulhausen  on  horseback,  and  after 
riding  some  hours  to  reach  the  Ballons  des  Vosges,  we 
were  overtaken  in  a  valley  by  the  Baden  officer  and  his 
seconds.  They  had  evidently  followed  on  our  traces. 
It  was  growing  dark.  The  three  men  fell  upon  us,  and 
before  we  could  defend  ourselves,  my  agent  was  killed ; 
the  Baden  man  had  run  him  through  the  heart  with 
a  sword,  crying  out: 

"  Coward !  you  are  running  away,  and  I  kill  you !" 

At  the  same  moment  I  was  seized  by  the  other  two 
men,  gagged,  blindfolded,  and  dragged  up  the  moun- 
tain. When  they  loosed  me  and  unbound  my  eyes,  and 
I  recovered  my  senses,  I  found  myself  in  a  sort  of  hut 
or  cabin  occupied  by  several  officers  in  Prussian  uni- 
form. They  were  sitting  round  a  table  on  which  lay 
maps  of  the  country.  One,  who  appeared  to  be  chief  of 
the  party,  resembled  by  his  stiff,  constrained  manner 
a  knight  of  the  Middle  Ages.  He  said  to  me  with  an 
obsequious,  almost  benevolent  smile : 

"  Monsieur  Claude,  compose  yourself.  No  harm  will 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  145 

be  done  to  you.  If  your  agent  is  dead,  it  is  his  own  fault. 
He  ought  not  to  have  wounded  the  national  feelings  of 
our  former  compatriots.  Alsace  has  been  German,  and 
will  be  German  again :  be  sure  of  that." 

I  tried  to  reply  and  protest.  Then  the  officer  changed 
in  manner;  he  assumed  that  air  of  harsh  command 
peculiar  to  Teutons  when  they  have  no  need  to  coax 
an  enemy. 

"  I  have  said  enough.  Monsieur  Claude,  to  show  you 
that  you  cannot  continue  your  search.  Your  spies  are 
spied  upon.  You  know  now  what  we  do  when  they  try 
their  strength  against  ours.  We  should  be  sorry,  how- 
ever, as  gentlemen,  to  treat  you  as  we  treated  that  fel- 
low. Return  to  Paris.  We  know  what  you  came  to  do 
at  Ferrette;  your  scheme  is  useless.  Jud  is  no  longer 
there;  he  is  in  a  foreign  country.  He  is  no  longer  Jud; 
he  bears  another  name.  Go!  but  I  tell  you  this:  if  you 
continue  your  search,  if,  by  sheer  impossibility,  you 
return  safe  and  sound  from  Ferrette,  you  will  be  pun- 
ished in  Paris  for  your  excess  of  zeal.  The  Emperor  of 
the  French  himself  will  not  be  grateful  for  it.  A  mag- 
istrate like  M.  Poinsot  died  because  he  tried  to  pene- 
trate state  secrets.  Jud  killed  him.  Are  you  likely  to 
be  more  fortunate  ?  Now  that  you  are  free  —  reflect !  " 

I  had  no  time  to  answer  before  the  whole  party  dis- 
appeared, and  I  was  alone.  Amazed  and  dumbfounded 
by  the  strange  things  produced  around  me  as  if  by  a 
thunderbolt,  I  hastened  to  leave  the  hut.  Still  doubting 
what  I  had  seen  and  heard,  I  ran  down  into  the  valley 
and  called  my  agent ;  I  could  not  yet  believe  that  he 


146  MEMOIRS   OF 

was  dead.  He  was  not  there ;  even  his  body  had  disap- 
peared. I  have  never  known  since  what  became  of  it. 

I  hastened,  almost  beside  myself,  my  mind  greatly 
troubled,  to  return  to  Mulhausen.  There  I  found  the 
city  in  a  state  of  rejoicing  contrasting  painfully  with 
the  cruel  drama  just  enacted  before  my  eyes.  I  was  told 
that  General  Moltke  had  arrived  with  his  daughter  on 
their  way  to  the  Vosges ;  and  the  German  city  of  Mul- 
hausen was  joyful  and  festal,  as  the  French  and  Catholic 
city  had  not  ventured  to  be  after  our  victories  in  Italy. 

I  understood  it  all.  With  anger  and  shame  in  my 
heart,  I  returned  to  Paris.  I  saw  the  Prefect,  I  saw  the 
Imperial  Procurateur,  and  I  wrote  at  the  bottom  of  my 
proceS'Verdal on  Jud,  the  murderer  of  a  French  judge: 
"  Nothing  to  be  done ! " 

I  shall  explain,  when  I  come  to  speak  of  the  Trop- 
mann  case,  what  still  remains  mysterious  in  the  murder 
of  M.  Poinsot,  who  died,  like  Kinck,  for  knowing  too 
much  about  the  underhand  actions  of  Prussia,  covetous 
of  Alsace  now  that  France  possessed  Savoy. 

In  spite  of  my  ill-success  in  finding  Jud,  in  spite  of 
my  disheartening  return  to  Paris  without  the  agent 
whom  I  had  left  murdered  in  the  Vosges,  this  adventure 
had  no  bad  consequences  for  me.  When  I  told  my 
Prefect  the  unexpected  events  of  my  terrible  journey, 
I  saw  a  man  greatly  embarrassed  by  my  statement.  He 
begged  me  to  tell  it  to  no  one,  to  keep  from  the  judges 
and  the  courts  all  knowledge  of  the  mysterious  and 
bloody  affair. 

This  silence,  which  I  was  warned  to  keep  "  in  my  own 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  147 

interest,"  produced  a  most  painful  impression  upon  me. 
I  suffered  in  my  professional  dignity,  and  I  suffered 
still  more  in  my  pride  as  a  Frenchman.  Alas !  I  began 
to  see  that  our  country  and  its  sovereign  were  strong 
in  appearance  only,  and  that  France  was  being  made 
to  pay  for  its  return  to  despotism  by  subservience  to 
foreign  nations.  For  having,  in  memory  of  a  glorious 
Napoleon,  delivered  herself  over  to  a  crooked  nephew 
[neveu  reiors],  France  was  now  in  the  power  of  foreign 
despots  more  cruel  and  far  more  able  than  Napoleon 
III. 

All  things  are  paid  for  here  below,  sooner  or  later : 
Louis-Philippe,  mounting  the  throne  from  a  barricade, 
came  down  from  it  by  a  barricade ;  Napoleon  I,  born 
under  English  guns  in  Corsica,  died  chained  by  Eng- 
lishmen to  the  rock  of  Saint  Helena.  If  Napoleon  III, 
borne  by  a  crime  to  the  Tuileries,  on  millions  borrowed 
from  the  Bank  of  France  and  millions  filched  from 
a  courtesan,  was  to  be  punished  according  to  his  deeds, 
what  destiny  was  reserved  for  him  —  and  for  France  } 

Such  were  the  reflections  that  I  made  to  myself  after 
Jud's  murder  of  M.  Poinsot  —  a  murder  about  which 
no  further  inquiry  was  made.  I  recapitulated  to  myself 
the  crimes  of  the  Empire  since  the  Coupd'Etat, — crimes 
which,  for  the  most  part,  were  the  consequences  of  that 
action :  the  poisoning  of  Marechal  Saint-Arnaud ;  the 
death  of  Cornemuse;  the  murders  of  Kelch  and  the 

Prince  de  C ;  the  disappearance  of  Miss  Howard ; 

the  hanging  of  Sinibaldi  in  Mazas;  the  drowning  of 
Morelli  at  Bordeaux,  etc. 


148  MEMOIRS   OF 

The  abduction  and  end  of  Miss  Howard  (so  called), 
the  handsome  English  woman  who  lent  eight  millions 
to  Prince  Louis  Bonaparte  to  play  the  role  of  Pretender 
and  to  carry  him  from  the  Elysee  to  the  Tuileries, 
proves  how  unsafe  it  was  to  trust  to  the  security  of 
imperial  gratitude. 

On  the  eve  of  his  marriage  Napoleon  III  was  much 
embarassed  by  Miss  Howard  on  account  of  this  loan, 
and  also  because  of  the  son  whom  Miss  Howard  had 
borne  him.  Moreover,  she  was  taking  upon  herself  the 
attitudes,  alternately,  of  empress  and  tigress.  Until 
the  very  eve  of  the  marriage  she  refused  to  believe  in 
Mademoiselle  de  Montijo's  good  luck,  being  convinced 
that  the  Emperor  was  only  fooling  her  rival. 

Mocquart,  the  Emperor's  confidant,  and  the  right 
hand  of  the  Due  de  Morny,  encouraged  her  in  this  con- 
viction, and  the  nearer  the  wedding-day  came  the  more 
he  deluded  her.  Mocquart,  who,  by  the  way,  under 
the  auspices  of  Mazzini,  had  been,  with  Dr.  Conneau, 
chiefly  instrumental  in  delivering  Prince  Louis  from 
Ham,  seeing  that  the  only  way  to  prevent  the  jealous 
English  woman  from  making  a  public  scandal  on  the 
day  of  the  marriage  was  to  remove  her,  persuaded 
her  to  go  with  him  to  Havre  under  a  promise  that  the 
Emperor  would  join  her  there.  While  eating  her  break- 
fast on  the  day  she  expected  the  Emperor  she  read 
an  account  of  the  wedding  ceremonies  in  the  Journal 
OfficieL  Instantly  she  left  the  Hotel  Frascati,  obtained 
a  locomotive,  and  rushed  to  Paris,  where  she  was  met 
by  the  spectacle  of  her  house  ransacked  by  the  police. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  149 

Furniture,  cushions,  letters,  papers,  contracts, 
slashed,  torn,  mutilated,  lay  pell-mell  upon  the  floor, 
while  several  of  the  latter  were  stolen,  among  them 
the  Emperor's  promissory  note  for  the  millions  which 
he  had  borrowed  from  his  mistress. 

The  Prefect,  M.  Pietri,  warned  from  Havre  by  a  dis- 
patch from  Mocquart  of  Miss  Howard's  arrival,  reached, 
almost  as  soon  as  she  did,  her  house  in  the  rue  du 
Cirque,  which  his  agents  had  just  finished  rifling. 
He  and  his  secretary  heard  with  their  own  ears  the 
vehement  English  woman  call  the  Emperor  "  swindler! 
thief  !  murderer !  " 

The  next  morning,  as  soon  as  she  woke,  Miss 
Howard  (whose  real  name  was  Elizabeth  Faucit)  was 
saluted  by  two  men,  one  a  banker,  the  other  a  general, 
with  the  title  of  Comtesse  de  Beauregard.  Acting  for  the 
Due  de  Morny,  they  presented  her  with  the  title-deeds 
of  the  Chateau  de  Beauregard,  an  estate  lying  close  to 
Versailles.  But  this  payment  of  her  millions  did  not 
placate  her.  To  defy  the  Empress  she  drove  in  the 
Bois  in  an  open  carriage  with  servants  in  the  imperial 
livery  ;  and  for  some  time  all  Paris  was  diverted,  at  the 
races  and  on  the  avenues,  by  the  presence  of  "  the  two 
Empresses." 

This  caper  was  costly  to  Miss  Howard.  She  was 
abducted  one  night  and  taken  to  the  frontier.  Nothing 
more  was  ever  heard  of  her.  It  was  said,  however,  that 
she  was  smothered  in  her  bed.' 

^  Her  son  by  Louis  Napoleon  died  at  the  Chiteau  de  Beauregard  in 
September,  1907. 


I50  MEMOIRS   OF 

Jules  Favre  had  good  reason  to  exclaim,  as  he  did 
beside  the  body  of  M.  Poinsot : 

"  It  is  not  safe  to  stand  well  with  the  Chateau." 

Long  before  the  death  of  M.  Poinsot,  too  close  con- 
tact with  the  Tuileries  had  brought  disaster  to  Marechal 
Saint-Arnaud.  Perhaps  it  is  not  useless  to  relate  the 
events  which  preceded  and  brought  about  the  death  of 
that  hero  of  the  Crimea,  whose  end,  according  to  the 
last  words  of  that  accomplice  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  "had 
no  exam.ple  in  history." 

Some  little  time  before  the  Crimean  War,  Saint- 
Arnaud,  who  had  felt  no  scruples  when  betraying  the 
Duchesse  de  Berry,  when  robbing  the  Arabs,  when  put- 
ting in  prison  his  chiefs  who  could  have  sent  him  to 
the  galleys,  Saint-Arnaud  felt  a  tardy  remorse  when 
his  new  chiefs  reproached  him  for  his  felonies,  and 
especially  when  Napoleon  showed  himself  no  longer 
grateful  for  his  services. 

Saint-Arnaud  then  reminded  his  sovereign  of  a  cer- 
tain terrible  little  packet  which  the  latter  had  given  him 
on  the  eve  of  the  Coup  d'Etat,  containing  orders  to 
burn  Paris  if  Paris  did  not  bow  to  the  new  Caesar.  The 
Emperor  yielded  before  that  threat,  but  only  to  await 
the  hour  when  Saint-Arnaud,  bold  from  impunity, 
should  commit  other  peccadilloes  that  would  compel  the 
Emperor  to  punish  him  before  the  eyes  of  the  Court. 

The  Marechal  did  not  keep  him  waiting  very  long. 
One  morning  he  took  from  the  Emperor's  own  room 
a  purse  full  of  bank-bills,  which  lay  on  the  marble  chim- 
ney-piece. His  Majesty  soon  discovered  the  theft.  Only 


LEROY   DE    SAINT-ARNAUD 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  151 

three  men  had  been  in  the  room :  Cornemuse,  Saint- 
Arnaud,  and  the  ex-King  Jerome.  The  Emperor  sent 
for  the  Prefect  of  Police,  Pietri,  who  had  lately  suc- 
ceeded Maupas  before  being  himself  replaced  by  Boi- 
telle,  after  the  affair  of  the  Orsini  bombs.  To  him  the 
Emperor  related  the  theft  of  which  he  was  the  victim. 

"  Who  has  been  in  the  room,  Majesty  ? "  asked 
Pietri. 

"  Cornemuse,"  replied  Napoleon. 

"  Hu !  hu ! "  exclaimed  Pietri,  shaking  his  head  doubt- 
fully, and  adding: 

"Who  else.?" 

"  Jerome." 

"  Ho !  ho ! "  said  the  Prefect  in  a  sharper  tone ;  "leave 
out  Cornemuse  —  Well,"  he  added,  "  anybody  after 
King  Jerome  ? " 

"  Saint-Arnaud." 

"  Ha !  ha ! "  cried  Pietri  eagerly ;  "  leave  out  King 
Jerome  also ;  useless  to  look  any  further.  Of  course  it 
is  the  Marechal.  My  opinion  is  fixed.  To  convince  your 
Majesty  it  is  only  necessary  to  confront  Cornemuse  and 
Saint-Arnaud  —  inasmuch  as,  out  of  respect  for  the 
Empire,  we  can't  summon  King  Jerome." 

No  sooner  said  than  done.  Cornemuse  and  Saint- 
Arnaud  defended  themselves  from  the  imputation  in 
presence  of  the  Emperor.  From  insults  they  passed 
to  provocation,  until  they  fought  almost  under  the  eyes 
of  the  sovereign,  and  General  Cornemuse  fell,  mortally 
wounded. 

When  Napoleon  talked  of  punishing  the  murderer, 


152  MONSIEUR   CLAUDE 

Saint-Arnaud  took  to  flight ;  but  he  went  no  farther  than 
Antibes,  whence  he  again  threatened  his  master  with 
the  terrible  packet  containing  the  orders  of  December, 
written  and  signed  "  L.  N.  Bonaparte,"  enjoining  him, 
in  case  of  failure,  to  burn  Paris  \incendier Paris], 

Saint-Arnaud  returned  from  Antibes  and  resumed 
his  portfolio  as  Minister  of  War.  In  it  lay  his  death- 
warrant.  He  took  it  only  to  become,  shortly  after,  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  Army  of  the  Crimea.  He  left 
France  ill,  consumed  by  an  unknown  malady  —  not 
unknown  to  him,  nor  to  the  man  who  had  given  him 
that  death. 

The  gaoler  of  Blaye,  the  victor  at  the  Alma,  went  to 
die  as  a  hero,  after  living  as  an  adventurer.  Con- 
demned by  his  accomplice,  an  adventurer  like  himself, 
he  was  purified  by  martyrdom. 


CHAPTER  XI 

GAMBLERS  AND  GAMBLING-HOUSES 


EVERYBODY  amused  him  or  herself  under  the 
Empire ;  princes  and  profligates,  gamblers  and 
wantons,  they  all  joined  hands  to  dance  a  dishev- 
elled saraband,  the  first  notes  of  which  sounding  in  the 
highest  society,  descended  thence,  to  be  lost  among 
the  populace.  Many  of  these  people,  of  all  ranks,  lived 
solely  by  the  product  of  vice  and  gambling.  The  po- 
lice were  often  hard  put  to  it  in  the  clubs  (which  were 
really  nothing  else  than  gambling-hells  disguised)  to 
distinguish  grecs  [sharpers]  from  princes.  Each  day 
produced  its  scandal,  which  I  was  forced  to  hush  up 
lest  public  opinion  should  become  excited. 

I  possessed  at  that  period  —  that  is  to  say  after  the 
war  in  Italy,  when  a  crowd  of  foreign  "nobles" 
swooped  down  upon  Paris  —  two  inspectors  with  an 
iniallihle  Jiazr  for  the  detection  of  sharpers  and  crimps. 
One  was  called  **the  Squirrel"  \_rEcureutl'\  ;  the  other 
"  the  Ventriloquist "  [le  Ventriloque\.  The  first  was 
agile  as  a  cat ;  the  second  artful  as  a  monkey ;  both 
had  a  thousand  and  one  tricks  in  their  bag  to  foil  the 
countless  schemes  and  decoys  by  which  the  young  fools 
of  family  were  robbed. 


154  MEMOIRS   OF 

The  Squirrel  knew  all  the  clubs  in  Paris.  Under 
the  most  varied  characters  and  costumes  he  consorted 
every  night  with  the  high-priests  of  ecarte,  piquet,  rou- 
lette, and  baccarat.  With  marvellous  agility  worthy  of 
Robert  Houdin  he  could  deal  the  right  card,  giving 
himself  kings  and  aces  in  a  way  to  make  the  Baron  of 
Womspire  jealous.  He  usually  frequented  the  "author- 
ized clubs " ;  that  is  to  say,  those  gambling-houses 
which,  under  the  direction  of  the  Minister  of  the  Inte- 
rior, took  the  place  during  the  Empire  of  the  public 
gambling-houses,  closed  under  Louis-Philippe. 

The  Squirrel  was  known  to  the  managers  of  all  these 
authorized  clubs,  who  looked  to  him  for  help  on  certain 
great  occasions  when  they  desired  to  protect  themselves 
against  intruders  whose  play  might  compromise  the 
reputation  and  even  the  existence  of  their  clubs. 

The  Ventriloquist  had  no  such  fashionable  con- 
nections. His  specialty  was  to  watch  the  clubs  that 
were  merely  "tolerated"  and  held  under  the  eye  of  the 
police.  His  power  was  less  limited  than  that  of  his 
colleague,  by  reason  of  the  class  of  houses  he  frequented. 
While  the  managers  of  the  "  authorized  clubs  "  welcomed 
the  Squirrel  as  a  saviour,  the  directors  of  the  "  tolerated 
clubs  "  saw  with  alarm  the  entrance  of  the  Ventriloquist. 
They  knew  that  a  report  of  that  inspector  as  to  certain 
illegal  practices  would  close  their  establishment;  so 
that  the  moment  he  appeared,  they  made  haste  to  hide 
the  contents  of  their  cagnotte  [osier  money-box  used  by 
gamblers] . 

Where  the  Ventriloquist  was  chiefly  feared  was  in 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  155 

the  secret  and  clandestine  gambling-hells.  Into  those  he 
would  track  a  sharper  by  profession.  When  the  game 
was  well  under  way,  the  words :  "  thief  "  —  "  swindler/' 
coming  from  his  stomach,  would  resound  through  the 
room;  then,  in  that  moment  of  general  stupefaction, 
my  inspector  would  seize  both  stakes  and  keepers  of 
the  suspected  establishment. 

About  the  time  of  the  expedition  to  Mexico,  the 
Ventriloquist  reported  to  the  Prefecture  the  opening 
of  a  new  gambling-house  in  the  rue  du  Helder.  It 
was  kept  by  a  foreign  courtesan,  a  beautiful  Spanish 
woman,  now  past  her  youth.  Her  former  revenues  failing 
her,  she  had  created  others  out  of  her  old  clients; 
with  the  addition  of  sons  of  family,  minors,  and  certain 
broken  gamblers,  whose  pockets  she  filled  with  the 
money  of  the  youths.  The  place  was  abandoned,  not 
closed,  after  a  very  dramatic  event  in  which  the  Ven- 
triloquist figured.  That  inspector  was,  however,  un- 
able to  bring  the  case  before  the  courts,  because  of 
the  influence  possessed  by  the  Spanish  woman,  who 
held  princely  strings,  reaching  even  to  the  steps  of  the 
throne. 

Both  my  gambling  agents,  the  Squirrel  and  the  Ven- 
triloquist, had  repeatedly  reported  to  me  the  names  of 
statesmen,  high  in  office,  who  had  been  completely 
"  cleaned  out  "  by  the  rake  of  the  beautiful  Spaniard's 
croupiers.  The  Ventriloquist  went  often  to  the  place 
to  watch,  especially,  a  certain  Marquis  d'Albano,  an 
Italian,  or  Spanish  nobleman,  who  was  said  to  have 
made  his  fortune  in  the  Mexican  mines. 


156  MEMOIRS   OF 

He  played  for  high  stakes  in  the  rue  du  Helder. 
When  he  had  no  more  bank-notes  to  throw  on  the 
green  cloth,  he  laid  down  handfuls  of  precious  stones 
with  which  his  pockets  were  crammed  in  case  of  ill 
luck.  It  was  said  that  these  stones,  spread  out  on  the 
table,  were  to  him  so  many  fetiches,  for  it  was  rare 
that  luck  did  not  return  to  him  as  soon  as  he  staked 
them  in  place  of  gold. 

The  Ventriloquist  reported  to  me  that  the  precious 
stones  of  the  noble  marquis  were  false.  As  soon  as  he 
staked  them  against  his  partner  his  swindling  game 
began.  At  no  cost  would  he  have  left  those  false  stones, 
which  proved  him  a  rascal,  in  the  hands  of  others. 
This  so-called  Marquis  d'Albano,  nicknamed  the 
"  sapphire  man,"  on  account  of  the  sort  of  stone  with 
which  he  was  chiefly  supplied,  was,  in  reality,  a  sharper 
of  the  worst  kind  who,  having  been  driven  from  for- 
eign gambling-houses,  had  come  to  Paris  to  play  a  last 
desperate  game.  He  was  accompanied  by  a  little  old 
man  with  an  ignoble  face  and  a  crafty  manner  who  was 
called  the  Counsellor.  Like  the  pretended  marquis,  he 
was  a  sharper  emeritus. 

The  sapphire  man  won  by  the  means  adopted  by  all 
professional  swindlers,  namely,  by  "  corner-bent "  cards 
\cartes  biseautees\  But  the  Counsellor  had  a  far  more 
original  dodge  by  which  he  turned  the  luck  to  his 
accomplice.  By  the  help  of  a  tortoise-shell  box  very 
highly  polished,  which  never  left  his  hand,  and  which 
he  rubbed  and  rubbed  incessantly,  he  possessed  a  pre- 
cious mirror.   On  the  pretext  of  offering  bonbons  to 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  157 

persons  near  him,  he  made  the  cover  of  the  box  reflect 
to  his  associate  the  cards  of  his  opponent.  He  thus 
showed  the  former  his  proper  play. 

One  night,  when  they  were  playing  an  outrageously 
"crooked"  game  in  the  rue  du  Helder,  the  Ventriloquist 
had  quietly  slipped  into  the  room  and  stood  watching 
the  proceedings.  The  Marquis,  a  man  of  extreme  ele- 
gance, in  the  prime  of  life  and  of  dark  complexion,  was 
seated  at  a  table  opposite  to  a  very  young  man.  The 
latter  was  winning  from  the  former,  who  presently,  as 
his  custom  was,  declaring  he  had  no  more  gold,  threw 
upon  the  table  a  handful  of  emeralds  and  sapphires, 
and  asked  for  his  revenge,  which  was  instantly  accepted. 
From  that  moment  the  luck  turned  in  favour  of  the 
sharper.  In  twenty  minutes  he  had  robbed  the  youth 
of  forty  thousand  francs,  which  he  piled  up  in  front  of 
him  among  his  false  stones. 

The  young  man,  in  his  turn,  asked  for  his  revenge, 
staking  the  whole  sum  that  he  had  lost — forty  thou- 
sand francs.  A  crowd  stood  around  the  players.  The 
Ventriloquist  was  in  the  front  rank,  never  taking  his 
eyes  from  the  hands  of  the  Marquis.  He  saw  him  slip 
from  his  sleeve  a  card  and  put  it  in  the  place  of  one  he 
held.  At  the  moment  when  the  Marquis  was  in  the  act 
of  doing  this  for  the  second  time,  the  Ventriloquist  sent 
these  words  sounding  through  the  room  from  his  stom- 
ach : 

"  Marquis,  you  are  a  thief ! " 

This  unexpected  cry,  breaking  the  deep  silence 
caused  by  the  importance  of  the  game,  burst  like  a 


158  MEMOIRS   OF 

bomb.  The  young  man  rose  from  the  table,  indignant, 
angry.  The  Marquis,  who  did  not  know  whence  the 
voice  came,  lost  countenance.  He  rose  abruptly,  leav- 
ing two  kings  of  hearts  on  the  table. 

Evidently  one  of  the  players  was  a  swindler.  A  shout 
of  indignation  came  from  the  crowd.  The  Ventrilo- 
quist, who,  to  save  the  young  man,  had  caused  this 
salutary  diversion,  was  about  to  lay  hands  on  the  Mar- 
quis. Unfortunately,  he  reckoned  without  the  Spanish 
woman  and  without  the  Counsellor.  The  latter,  who 
had  as  much  interest  as  the  mistress  of  the  house  in 
saving  his  accomplice  from  being  caught  in  a  bad 
affair,  put  to  profit  the  general  confusion  caused  by 
the  accusation  that  seemed  to  come  from  underground. 

The  young  man,  meantime,  had  sprung  upon  the 
Marquis,  calling  him  a  swindler  and  thief.  During  this 
altercation,  the  Counsellor,  protected  by  the  woman, 
profited  by  the  moment  when  the  chairs  were  noisily 
knocked  over  and  the  confusion  was  great  to  slip  the 
marked  cards  from  the  sleeve  of  his  accomplice  into 
the  pocket  of  the  youth.  This  proceeding,  however, 
the  Ventriloquist  did  not  see. 

When  the  Marquis,  saved  by  the  Counsellor,  de- 
manded that  both  he  and  his  opponent  should  be 
searched  to  show  which  of  them  was  guilty,  the  Ven- 
triloquist was  as  much  aghast  at  the  result  as  the 
young  man  himself,  in  whose  pocket  the  marked  cards 
were  found. 

Then  followed  a  general  hubbub.  The  young  man 
thought  he  was  the  victim  of  some  horrible  nightmare. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  159 

As  the  money  he  had  gambled  was  not  his  own,  and 
as,  in  losing  it,  he,  the  faithless  cashier  of  a  bank,  was 
already  guilty,  he  did  not  hesitate,  under  the  shock  of 
this  second  accusation,  to  condemn  himself.  He  left 
the  room,  seized  his  sword-cane,  which  was  in  the  ante- 
chamber, and  plunged  it  into  his  heart.  Then,  stagger- 
ing back  into  the  salon,  he  showed  his  bloody  breast, 
exclaiming : 

"  Would  a  thief  like  that  man  "  (pointing  to  the  Mar- 
quis, who  was  in  the  act  of  gathering  up  his  80,000 
francs)  "  die  thus  }  " 

He  fell  dead. 

The  Ventriloquist  swore  to  avenge  him ;  and  he  did 
so  in  the  end,  but  not  without  difBculty.  As  for  the 
place  in  the  rue  du  Helder,  this  tragedy  closed  it.  On 
an  order  from  the  Chateau  to  hush  up  the  affair,  its 
habitues  deserted  it.  But  I  was  much  grieved  myself 
to  be  unable  to  act.  I  was  forced  to  content  myself 
with  giving  strict  orders  that  the  Marquis  d'Albano, 
the  cause  of  the  suicide,  should  not  be  lost  sight  of. 

Since  gambling-houses  are  no  longer  public,  "author- 
ized clubs"  have  become  of  considerable  importance, 
and  gambling-hells  are  too  numerous  to  count.  The 
licenses  for  gaming  no  longer  enrich  the  public  treas- 
ury; on  the  contrary,  the  city  spends  vast  sums  in 
watching  both  clubs  and  hells,  and  a  special  police 
against  these  houses  is  forever  on  the  alert.  But  in 
spite  of  the  activity  of  the  police,  the  fever  for  play  will 
open  twenty  gambling-houses  for  one  that  they  close. 
Such  places  will  never  cease  to  exist.  They  were  not 


i6o  MEMOIRS   OF 

really  closed  in  1837,  when,  by  a  vote  of  the  Chamber, 
they  were  declared  illegal.  Nor  has  the  race  of  profes- 
sional gamblers  disappeared.  Gambling  may  be  sup- 
pressed by  decree,  but  the  passion  for  gambling  cannot 
be  suppressed.  Man  lives  on  chimeras.  The  gambler, 
who  discounts  nought  but  hope,  is  as  eternal  as  hu- 
manity. 

A  gambler  never  admits  that  he  loses.  He  has  a  hor- 
ror of  the  word  loss.  He  meets  only  with  a  "  mischance." 
If,  after  several  games,  he  has  persistent  ill  luck,  he  says : 
"  I  'm  involved."  When  he  is  completely  ruined,  he  re- 
signs himself  to  watch  the  play  of  others  and  give  them 
advice.  Some  regret  that  not  a  shred  of  their  property 
is  left  to  them,  all  being  swallowed  up  in  a  martingale 
—  a  double  or  quits  stake.  They  then  propound  to 
whoso  will  listen,  their  "  practical  studies,"  and  their 
"  infallible  calculations  on  human  probabilities." 

The  gambler  is  essentially  a  maniac,  yet  self-con- 
trolled. A  well-known  gambler  at  roulette  in  Baden 
never  played  for  more  than  fifteen  minutes ;  his  stake 
was  invariably  the  same ;  he  either  lost  two  thousand 
francs,  or  he  won  from  fifteen  to  twenty  thousand.  The 
King  of  Bavaria  always  went  to  the  Baden  tables  fol- 
lowed by  a  servant  carrying  a  cash-box  filled  with  gold. 
When  the  box  was  empty  he  left  the  place. 

The  gambler  is  superstitious;  he  believes  in  fetich. 
If  a  hump-backed  man  wins,  you  will  see  "  punters  " 
eagerly  group  about  him  to  touch  his  hump  and  rub 
against  his  luck.  At  Vichy  players  carry  rabbits'  paws 
to  gently  touch  the  backs  of  those  who  win.   One  man 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  i6i 

piles  louis  one  upon  another  in  a  column.  If  the  column 
keeps  its  equilibrium,  he  makes  his  stake.  If  it  falls,  he 
lays  down  his  cards  and  puts  his  stake  in  his  pocket, 
convinced  in  advance  of  his  ill  luck. 

Suicide  is  never  the  end  of  the  true  gambler.  A  clerk 
who  loses  the  money  of  his  master,  a  speculator  seek- 
ing to  retrieve  his  fortune  by  gambling,  may  kill  him- 
self ;  the  professional  gambler,  a  maniac,  never  despairs 
of  his  luck,  though  he  may  have  lost  his  last  penny. 
He  will  stake  his  last  shirt !  If  he  has  nothing  more  to 
lose,  he  will  console  himself  in  watching  the  play  of 
others,  and  in  giving  advice.  The  professional  gambler 
does  not  know  what  despair  is.  If  he  is  ruined,  it  is  be- 
cause he  has  made  a  miscalculation.  To  his  last  day  he 
hopes  for  retrieval.  He  is  convinced  he  shall  have  it. 
He  is  a  madman;  but  his  madness  is  inherent  in  the 
human  species.  None  but  reasonable  and  reasoning 
men,  players  from  ambition,  from  envy,  or  from  neces- 
sity, ever  give  way  to  despair  and  commit  suicide.  The 
professional  gambler  lives  to  old  age. 

Thus  it  is  that  sharpers  have  a  fine  chance  against 
the  true  gambler.  On  him  they  are  able  by  their  skill, 
their  coolness,  to  bring  to  bear  all  the  resources  of  their 
jugglery.  For  to  him  the  game  is  sacred;  he  neither 
admits  nor  even  suspects  trickery. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THIEVES  AND  FORGERS 


IN  the  kingdom  —  or  the  republic — of  the  Haute 
Pegre  the  numerous  ranks  and  categories  have 
scarcely  varied  for  the  last  thirty  years.  The  Haute 
Pegre  is,  speaking  generally,  the  caste,  or  association,  of 
the  oldest  and  most  practised  thieves ;  they  commit  none 
but  great  robberies,  and  hold  in  profound  contempt  all 
ordinary  thieves,  whom  they  call,  derisively, /^^^/^/j, 
chiffoniers  [rag-pickers] . 

Our  society,  overturned  again  and  yet  again  as  it 
has  been  by  revolutions,  sees  in  the  caste  of  thieves 
the  same  thing  that  has  happened  in  all  other  castes. 
There,  as  elsewhere,  the  more  it  changes,  the  more  it 
is  the  same  thing. 

Systems  of  repression  against  wretches  who  have  no 
other  means  of  living  than  robbery  and  murder,  being 
now  discussed  in  the  interests  of  liberty  ill  understood, 
thieves  are  becoming  more  numerous  and  more  auda- 
cious. The  world  of  thieves  has  put  to  profit  the  war 
against  society  to  share  the  spoils  and  follow  with  im- 
punity their  criminal  ends.  During  the  last  thirty  years 
the  number  of  murderers  and  robbers  has  frightfully 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  163 

increased ;  while  from  day  to  day  criminals  are  more  and 
more  able  to  escape  from  law  and  justice. 

Thanks  to  greater  rapidity  and  facility  in  ways  of 
communication,  the  world  of  criminals  is  now  a  cosmo- 
politan world  whose  most  distinguished  heroes  be- 
long, as  for  thieves,  to  England;  as  for  murderers,  to 
Germany.  The  great  genius  of  robbery  was  an  Eng- 
lishman named  Benson ;  the  prototypes  of  murder  were 
Jud  and  Tropmann,  both  Germans. 

Formerly,  robbers  emeriti,  like  Lacenaire  and 
Soufflard,  robbers  and  murderers  both,  established  their 
"centres"  in  the  slums  of  the  Cite ;  now  those  "centres  " 
are  in  foreign  countries.  These  criminals  form  in  Lon- 
don and  in  Germany  not  bands  but  associations,  with 
their  hierarchy,  their  rules,  their  troops,  their  finances, 
and  their  war-material.  When  a  great  event  or  some 
dangerous  crisis  occurs  in  France,  —  that  happy  land 
for  swindlers,  thieves,  and  murderers, — the  international 
bandits  send  their  most  dangerous  delegates  to  Paris. 
It  may  be  said  with  all  certainty  that  to-day  [i  881]  the 
headquarters  of  our  Haute  Pegre  are  established  in 
foreign  countries ;  its  small  fry  alone  live  in  the  lairs 
of  Paris.  The  great  men  come  over  only  when  there  is 
a  "  stroke  to  be  made,"  or  an  event  to  exploit. 

The  gens  comme  il  faut,  the  well-bred  members  of 
the  Haute  Pegre,  keep  themselves  very  carefully  from 
their  humbler  brethren  in  the  slums.  When  they  need 
a  "  centre  "  in  Paris  to  meet  and  concert  their  plans, 
they  avoid  all  regions  placed  from  time  immemorial 
under  the  eye  of  the  police.  They  create  one  for  them- 


i64  MEMOIRS   OF 

selves.  At  the  time  of  the  Tropmann  affair,  an  establish- 
ment, half-creamery,  half-brewery,  kept  by  a  woman  in 
spectacles,  suddenly  cropped  up  in  the  rue  Grange- 
Batelliere.  It  disappeared,  with  its  hostess,  the  moment 
the  police  learned  that  Tropmann,  on  arriving  in  Paris, 
had  gone  there  to  meet  a  party  of  internationals.  These 
heroes  of  the  Haute  Pegre  never  do  more  than  two 
"strokes"  a  year;  but  those  are  always  master-strokes 
which  procure  them  a  fortune. 

Politics,  at  which  these  geniuses  of  robbery  and  murder 
scoff,  are  to  them  a  means,  never  an  end.  Under  the 
Commune,  when  fanatics  and  dreamers  of  absolute 
equality  opened  all  the  prisons  of  Paris,  the  thieves  and 
murderers  took  advantage  of  that  act  of  social  reparation 
to  plant  themselves  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and  dictate 
their  own  laws.  They  had  but  one  object — to  profit  by 
the  national  disaster  and  to  pillage,  continuing  their 
exploits  even  upon  the  men  who  had  released  them ! 
I,  myself,  when  a  prisoner  under  the  Commune,  owed 
my  life  and  my  escape  from  the  fate  of  the  hostages  put 
to  death  by  Ferre  and  Raoul  Rigault  to  a  man  of  the 
Haute  Pegre,  then  in  power,  who  recognized  me  grate- 
fully, and  saved  me,  by  his  cleverness,  from  certain 
death. 

For  the  last  thirty  years  the  leaders  of  this  world  of 
criminals  have  acquired  an  importance  that  places  them 
almost  in  the  rank  of  conquerors.  Though  the  police, 
thanks  to  its  spies,  detectives,  and  inspectors,  knows 
the  name,  address,  and  character  of  all  the  scoundrels 
in  Paris,  it  does  not  know,  and  will  never  know,  the 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  165 

bandits  in  other  lands  who  descend  upon  us  from  their 
lairs  and  set  in  motion  their  armies.  These  wretches 
have  the  whole  world  in  which  to  escape  the  pursuit  of 
our  sleuth-hounds.  They  have  gold  in  abundance  with 
which  they  pay  a  police  almost  as  well  organized  as  our 
own.  For  the  last  twenty  years  they  have  internation- 
alized  themselves. 

Before  the  war  in  Italy,  and  long  before  the  German 
war,  the  criminal  quarters  of  Paris  —  the  Isle  aux  Singes 
at  Greville,  the  Carrieres  d'Amertque  at  Belleville  — 
knew  no  other  cosmopolitan  robbers  than  the  Romani- 
chels,  a  sort  of  nomad  tribe,  dating  back  to  the  Middle 
Ages,  recalling  the  family  of  the  Cageux,  classical  bohe- 
mians,  thieves,  robbers,  and  murderers  from  father  to 
son,  travelling  in  all  countries,  recognizing  no  laws, 
having  but  one  object,  theft,  one  counsellor,  craft,  one 
will,  that  of  the  tribe.  To-day,  the  Romanichel  bohe- 
mians  are  far  surpassed  by  the  organization  of  other 
bands,  the  depredations  of  which,  since  the  Italian  and 
German  wars  and  the  era  of  the  Commune,  present 
a  much  more  threatening  attitude,  excited  by  our  civil 
discords,  and  encouraged  by  our  political  rancours. 

While  the  great  crimes  are  still  plotted  and  carried 
out  by  instigators  in  foreign  lands,  a  change  has  taken 
place  in  the  pegrioL  Thanks  to  the  relaxed  laws  that 
protect  him,  he  has  become  a  past-master  of  theft  and 
allied  crimes.  Quite  recently  we  have  seen  the  too  cele- 
brated Maillot  organizing  bands  oipegriotson  the  road 
from  Greville  to  Vaugirard,  and  murdering  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  robbery.   They  exceed  in  cruelty  and 


i66  MEMOIRS   OF 

cynicism  the  old  fagot  [discharged  galley-slave],  to 
whom,  in  earlier  times,  they  would  have  been  mere  aides. 

In  addition  to  this  foreign  contingent  of  robbers  and 
assassins  (but  aside  from  these  apprentice  thieves, 
now  past-masters  in  crime  and  infamy),  the  tricks,  the 
expedients  of  modern  bandits  vary  very  little  from  those 
described  by  Vidocq  and  Canler.  It  really  seems  as 
though  crime,  like  all  other  things  here  below,  by 
spreading  and  generalizing  itself,  has  lost  originality. 

On  the  other  hand,  swindlers  and  forgers,  whose  num- 
bers are  legion,  show  far  more  imagination.  They  do  not 
borrow  from  Mandrin  or  Cartouche  their  expedients  and 
dodges.  No,  they  avail  themselves  of  progress,  they  meet 
the  conditions  of  the  present  day.  The  police  are  fairly 
worn  out  at  times  with  these  rascals.  They  swarm  in 
Paris ;  they  fight  a  perpetual  battle  with  us  under  one 
form  or  another :  sometimes  it  is  a  "  matrimonial  agency  " 
that  we  have  to  watch,  the  advertisements  of  which 
attract  respectable  families  anxious  to  hide  the  fault 
of  a  daughter  by  paying  a  handsome  dot  to  whoever 
will  marry  her.  Sometimes  it  is  a  "  business  agency," 
a  "commission  house,"  offering  employment  to  poor 
devils,  who,  in  view  of  a  position  and  a  fixed  salary,  are 
induced  to  put  their  savings,  which  they  never  will 
see  again,  into  the  hands  of  swindlers.  Or,  again,  it  is 
a  midwife,  making  a  business  of  abortion,  calling  her- 
self a  mere  aux  anges  [mother  to  angels]  of  deserted 
children. 

The  swindlers  and  forgers  who  are  least  easy  to  cap- 
ture are  the  adulterators  of  articles  of  commerce,  and 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  167 

those  who  alter  and  falsify  the  receipts  of  the  pawn-shops. 
A  band  of  rascals  was  organized  for  this  double  pur- 
pose. In  less  than  three  months  they  succeeded  in 
making  300,000  francs,  and  in  three  months  more  they 
had  realized  a  round  million. 

In  the  suburbs  of  Paris,  such,  for  instance,  as  the 
streets  named  Menilmontant  and  Flanders,  there  are 
workshops  of  the  forgers  of  commemorative  coins,  and 
of  medals  claiming  to  have  been  blessed,  which  are  sent 
by  the  wagon-load  to  far  distant  foreign  lands  under  pre- 
text of  religious  propaganda.  The  forgers  of  these  coins 
and  medals  unlicensed  by  the  Mint  produce  wonderful 
transformations  by  means  of  electric  baths.  A  zinc  medal 
becomes  a  gold  medal,  and  is  sold  as  such,  with  a  bene- 
diction from  the  Pope  that  has  never  been  given.  Several 
of  these  clandestine  workshops  have  been  broken  up  by 
the  police ;  though  often  our  hands  were  tied  by  high 
influences  that  protected  these  manufacturers,  who  were, 
most  of  them,  church- wardens  of  a  parish. 

The  most  interesting  forgers,  those  who  have  raised 
their  misdeeds  to  an  art,  are  the  makers  of  bank-notes 
and  autographs.  Does  the  reader  desire  to  know  the 
sum  represented  by  the  forged  notes  that  are  brought  to 
the  Bank  of  France  in  one  year  ?  It  amounts,  in  round 
numbers,  to  two  millions  of  francs.  Lacenaire,  whose 
business  was  that  of  a  public  writer,  was  a  forger  of  the 
highest  class ;  he  could  imitate  perfectly  the  writing  of 
the  great  bankers  and  merchants  of  his  day. 

Since  Lacenaire,  a  new  industry  has  cropped  up,  which 
I  ought  to  have  detected  and  arrested  at  its  start,  but 


i68  MEMOIRS   OF 

failed  in  doing  so,  —  I  mean  the  fabrication  of  auto- 
graphs. 

There  existed  some  time  ago,  near  the  Place  Saint- 
Sulpice,  a  dealer  in  second-hand  articles,  who  sold  at 
a  reduction  letters  and  signatures  of  the  greatest  people 
in  the  world  —  Frederick  the  Great,  Voltaire,  J.  J.  Rous- 
seau, Mme.  de  Warens,  Louis  XIV,  George  Sand,  and 
Sandeau,  Bernadotte,  Bernardin  de  Saint-Pierre,  etc., 
etc.  The  shop  of  this  man  was  a  perfect  Pantheon ;  an 
historical  pandemonium,  where  the  quantity  of  famous 
names  equalled  their  quality. 

Being  myself  a  lover  of  curious  things,  I  often  stopped 
as  I  passed  through  that  quarter  before  the  show-win- 
dow of  the  dealer,  whose  sordid  shop  scarcely  corre- 
sponded with  the  calligraphic  treasures  he  exhibited  to 
the  public  eye.  Yet  I  must  own  that  on  entering  it  and 
meeting  the  little  old  man,  with  grey  eyes,  pinched 
face,  and  sunken  cheeks,  yellow  as  his  own  parch- 
ments, I,  even  I,  was  entrapped. 

Was  the  man  a  maniac,  ruining  himself  by  collecting 
autographs  that  he  sold,  as  he  told  me,  with  regret.  Or 
was  he  —  could  he  be,  on  the  contrary,  a  shrewd  knave, 
who,  to  profit  by  the  mania  of  collectors,  made  himself 
more  of  a  collector  than  they } 

I  own  that  I  could  not  make  this  out ;  and  I  stood 
looking  about  me  when,  at  the  farther  end  of  the  shop, 
where  Louis  XIV  clocks  were  piled  pell-mell  with  Louis 
XV  andirons  and  rococo  porcelains,  my  eye  caught 
sight  of  a  beautiful  picture  marked  "  authentic  portrait 
of  La  Fontaine,"  and  also  of  a  sketch  for  a  portrait 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  169 

which  I  recognized  at  once  as  that  of  George  Sand 
about  her  twentieth  year. 

"  I  possess,"  said  the  little  old  man ,  pointing  to  the 
sketch,  "  a  portrait  of  George  Sand  before  she  was  the 
celebrated  writer  that  we  now  know,  and  when  she  was 
only  a  painter  on  china,  after  her  first  separation  from 
M.  Dudevant." 

As  I  warmly  admired  the  breadth  and  freedom  of 
the  sketch,  the  old  man  added : 

"  This  portrait  is  all  the  more  precious  because  I  have 
reason  to  think  that  she  painted  it  herself." 

I  was  surprised  at  this  detail,  and  so  much  interested 
in  the  matter  that  I  forgot  the  object  of  my  inspection. 
I  was  being  caught  in  the  lime  with  which  I  had  ex- 
pected to  catch  the  bird  in  his  own  nest ;  and  I  was 
completely  fooled  when  the  old  man  opened  a  casket 
and  drew  forth  several  letters  from  George  Sand  to 
Sandeau,  in  one  of  which  the  celebrated  writer  called 
her  master  in  the  art  of  writing :  "  Illustrious  Flam- 
bard!"  Sandeau  called  Flambard  [Flashlight]  by  the 
woman  who  owed  to  him  the  grace  of  her  style,  and 
half  her  name !  Here  was  something  to  dream  about ! 
How  could  I  doubt  the  authenticity  of  the  letter  when 
its  owner  undoubtedly  possessed  a  portrait  of  the  author. 

I  own  that,  in  spite  of  certain  suspicions  which  lin- 
gered in  my  mind,  I  should  have  been  wholly  taken  in 
if  it  had  not  been  for  the  profusion  of  the  old  fellow's 
merchandise.  Returning  to  him  the  sketch  and  the 
autograph,  I  asked,  in  a  tone  of  incredulity,  who  sup- 
plied him  with  his  more  or  less  authentic  collection. 


I70  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  A  learned  man,  monsieur,"  he  replied,  looking  at 
me  with  an  air  of  lofty  disdain,  "  a  very  learned  man, 
whose  good  faith  cannot  be  suspected,  for  he  is  hon- 
oured with  the  confidence  of  the  Institute.  His  name 
is  Vrain  Lucas,  the  friend  and  scientific  assistant  of 
Michel  Chasles." 

And  the  old  man,  closing  his  coffer  and  replacing  the 
sketch,  showed  me  out  of  his  shop  without  another  word. 

I  own  I  was  puzzled,  floored,  and  beaten.  How  could 
I  suspect  an  old  antiquary  who  obtained  his  treasures 
from  a  man  honoured  by  the  confidence  of  Michel 
Chasles,  the  dean  of  the  most  distinguished  philo- 
sophers and  mathematicians  then  living.  What  could  I, 
an  outsider,  a  mere  policeman,  do  against  Vrain  Lucas, 
behind  whom  the  antiquary  sheltered  himself,  sup- 
ported by  the  learned  Academy  of  which  Chasles  was 
at  that  time  the  most  superb  incarnation  ? 

It  was  not  until  later,  very  much  later,  that  Vrain 
Lucas  was  discovered  to  be  a  shameless  and  vulgar 
forger;  who  had  abused  the  confidence  of  the  learned 
mathematician,  and  had  used  him  as  a  breast-plate 
to  launch  his  forged  letters  and  signatures  of  Pascal, 
Voltaire,  Newton,  etc.,  etc.,  upon  the  world.  At  first 
M.  Chasles,  when  the  forgeries  were  discovered,  was 
placed  in  an  awkward  position.  When  summoned  be- 
fore the  examining  magistrate  as  the  accomplice  of 
Lucas,  of  whom  he  was  really  the  victim,  he  replied  to 
the  judge: 

"  I  have  often  been  duped,  never  suspecting  evil  in 
others." 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  171 

I  myself,  after  the  Commune,  had  a  personal  oppor- 
tunity to  judge  of  the  skill  of  the  forgers  of  autographs. 
An  offer  was  made  to  one  of  my  friends  in  my  presence 
of  an  autograph  of  the  famous  Raoul  Rigault,  who, 
with  Ferre,  had  imprisoned  me  as  a  hostage  in  the 
prison  of  La  Sante.  The  man  who  offered  the  auto- 
graph did  not  know  me;  he  knew  only  that  my  friend 
was  a  fanatical  collector. 

When  the  document  was  produced,  what  did  I  see  ? 
—  a  forged  autograph  of  which  the  original  was  then 
in  my  desk  and  is  still  in  my  possession !  an  order  to 
permit  my  wife  to  see  me  in  the  prison  of  La  Sante, 
in  presence  of  a  gaoler,  signed  Raoul  Rigault!  This 
paper  I  had  shown  to  many  persons  after  the  Commune 
had  ceased  to  exist ;  it  had  remained  deeply  engraved 
on  the  memory  of  one  of  them  whom  we  soon  discovered 
to  be  an  autograph  forger. 

When  the  Commissary  of  Police  made  a  descent  on 
this  successor  to  Vrain  Lucas,  he  found  a  secret  work- 
shop where  several  forgers  were  busy,  according  to 
their  aptitudes,  in  making  the  writing  of  Alexandre 
Dumas,  La  Place,  Alfred  de  Musset,  Champfleury,  etc. 
One  of  them  excelled  in  the  large  writing  of  Louis  XIV, 
another  in  the  clear,  precise  calligraphy  of  Dumas, 
fere ;  a  third  in  the  illegible  scrawl  of  Balzac. 

There  was  also,  in  the  same  house,  a  studio  in  which 
a  painter  made  admirable  portraits  of  great  men  in  the 
precise  style  of  the  artists  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  master  of  the  establishment  sold  these  portraits  as 
originals  to  antiquaries  of  the  same  honest  class  as  the 


172  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

owner  of  the  portrait  of  George  Sand !  At  last  I  had 
the  key  to  the  mystery  of  that  sketch ! 

These  rascally  forgers  of  antiquities  are  not  dead  yet. 
Our  historical  museums  are  filled  with  the  work  of  these 
skilful  artists,  whose  lies,  carefully  preserved,  are  going 
down  to  posterity. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE  DIAMONDS  OF  THE  DUKE  OF 
BRUNSWICK 


THOSE  who  knew  Paris  in  the  sixties,  will 
doubtless  remember,  in  the  old  Beau j  on  quar- 
ter, a  strange,  striped  house,  the  aspect  of 
which  had  an  irritating  originality.  The  outer  walls 
of  the  property  opened,  or  rather,  were  never  opened, 
into  gardens,  in  one  angle  of  which  stood  the  build- 
ing owned  and  occupied  by  the  Duke  of  Bruns- 
wick. 

The  illustrious  Duke,  whose  very  noble  stock  has 
given  kings  to  England,  was  not  less  eccentric  than 
the  appearance  of  his  house.  If  the  style  paints  the 
man,  it  could  be  said  with  equal  truth  that  the  Duke 
of  Brunswick  was  painted  by  his  house.  He  was  a 
personage  as  mysterious,  as  bedizened,  as  sinister  as 
the  scarlet  fa9ade  of  his  singular  habitation.  In  that 
house,  which  resembled  an  immense  strong-box,  the 
Duke  kept  from  fifteen  to  sixteen  millions  worth  of  dia- 
monds. He  was  as  miserly  as  he  was  rich,  while  con- 
tinuing his  ancestral  traditions  of  gallantry.  If  he  took 
his  pleasures,  he  wanted  them  cheap.  He  never  opened 
his  jewel-box,  which  was  stuffed  as  full  of  precious 


174  MEMOIRS   OF 

stones  as  the  cave  of  Ali-Baba,  except  for  his  personal 
and  private  satisfaction. 

Perhaps  he  was  right,  that  noble  Duke,  to  entrench 
himself  in  his  house,  as  in  a  cave  or  fortress.  His  fam- 
ily never  forgave  the  trick  by  which,  when  driven  from 
his  duchy,  he  contrived  to  carry  off  the  diamond  mil- 
lions that  belonged  far  more  to  the  crown  than  to  him, 
the  discrowned  prince.  It  was  not  without  reason, 
therefore,  that  the  Duke  had  made  his  house  a  sort  of 
scarecrow ;  like  the  Chinamen  who,  to  terrify  their 
adversaries,  hide  behind  fantastic  monsters. 

But  the  repulsive  outside  appearance  of  the  house 
was  not  its  only  means  of  defence.  Before  reaching  the 
Duke's  apartments  a  thousand  bells  would  be  set  ring- 
ing. There  were  bells  to  all  the  doors,  and  these  doors 
converged  towards  the  private  study  and  bedroom  of 
the  Duke.  Behind  these  two  rooms  was  the  strong-box 
or  cupboard  which  contained  the  diamonds.  Here 
electric  bells  communicated  by  hidden  wires  with  a 
row  of  pistols.  At  an  unaccustomed  pressure  these 
revolvers  could  fire  a  broadside  that  would  inevitably 
blow  to  fragments  the  rash  intruder.  If  the  Duke  slept 
on  millions  it  was  certainly  not  a  bed  of  roses ;  and  it 
is  no  wonder  that  he,  mentally  as  well  as  bodily,  saw 
everything  blood-coloured. 

I  remember  this  singular  personage  as  I  often  saw 
him  in  a  stage-box  of  the  lesser  theatres,  which  he  fre- 
quented in  company  with  some  ephemeral  mistress  of 
the  quarter-world.  He  sat  immoveable  as  a  milestone. 
It  was  impossible  to  guess  his  age  or  his  features  be- 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  175 

hind  the  painted  mask  of  his  impassible  face.  All  was 
false  in  this  enigmatical  individual,  who  was  almost  an 
automaton.  False  was  his  beard,  false  his  hair,  false 
his  whiskers;  even  his  movements,  when  he  made  any, 
went,  as  it  were,  by  mechanism.  When  he  rose,  a 
strange,  rattling  sound  was  heard,  like  the  clatter  of 
bones  when  the  wind  sets  a  skeleton  in  motion.  This 
man,  a  living  corpse,  a  talking  skeleton,  was  horrible 
to  look  at. 

The  Emperor  himself  did  not  give  more  trouble  to 
the  police.  Inspectors  were  paid  never  to  lose  sight  of 
him,  and  to  watch  his  domestics,  whom  he  distrusted 
as  the  rois  faineants  distrusted  the  mayors  of  their 
palace.  We  had  to  keep  an  incessant  eye  on  this  dead 
body,  which  lived  only  to  aggravate  his  family.  The 
police  were  literally  worn  out  because  the  noble  Duke, 
who  had  alienated  all  persons  of  his  own  caste,  was  the 
aim  and  object  of  every  intriguer  upon  earth,  both  male 
and  female,  attracted  by  the  gleam  of  his  diamonds. 
As  miserly  as  he  was  suspicious,  his  monomania  (often 
quite  justifiable)  was  to  think  that  the  whole  human 
race  was  after  his  jewel-box. 

The  newspapers  of  that  period  are  full  of  suits 
brought  by  obscure  persons  against  the  luckless  rich 
man,  who  was  always  on  the  qui  vive^  always  in  expec- 
tation that  some  one  would  shout  to  him  "  Your  money 
or  your  life."  Once  a  Mme.  Civry  drew  upon  him  and 
claimed,  as  a  natural  daughter,  a  very  considerable 
allowance.  It  was  really  no  wonder  that,  fantastic  as 
he  was,  he  took  such  precautions   to  defend  himself 


176  MEMOIRS   OF 

against  his  assailants.  If  his  house  was  a  fortress,  if 
his  garden  was  full  of  wolf-traps,  if  his  private  rooms 
were  defended  by  revolvers  and  electric  bells,  it  was 
because  his  house  and  his  person  were  literally  hemmed 
about  by  all  the  bandits  of  the  globe. 

The  Duke  had  in  his  service  a  young  English  woman 
as  honest  and  virtuous  as  she  was  pretty.  He  turned 
her  away  because  he  could  not  obtain  from  her  what 
he  obtained  from  his  other  servants,  compliances  that 
were  not  in  the  bond  of  ordinary  service.  The  maid, 
angry  at  the  insolence  and  the  stinginess  of  her  mas- 
ter, who  had  turned  her  off  without  her  legal  eight 
days'  notice,  vowed  vengeance.  She  found  an  avenger 
at  hand  in  the  Duke's  confidential  valet,  who  declared 
himself  outraged  by  the  conduct  of  the  Duke;  he  had, 
he  said,  wrongs  of  his  own  to  redress,  and  he  proposed 
to  the  maid  to  take  their  revenge  in  common.  She 
consented. 

This  valet,  named  Henry  Shaw,  was  a  countryman 
of  the  young  girl.  He  was  born  at  Newcastle  and  was 
twenty-six  years  of  age.  He  had  not  lived  a  year  with 
the  Duke  of  Brunswick  before,  by  his  intelligence,  his 
manners,  his  obliging  ways,  he  had  made  himself  the 
indispensable  man  of  the  household.  The  following 
was  the  plan  of  revenge  he  proposed  to  the  maid : 
they  were  to  write  a  joint  letter  addressed  to  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  in  which  they  pledged  them- 
selves, in  return  for  a  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand 
francs,  to  restore  to  the  family  of  the  Duke  of  Bruns- 
wick the  diamonds  of  which  he  had  defrauded  them. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  177 

The  maid  consented,  not  without  reluctance,  to  sign 
this  letter  with  the  valet ;  but  she  added  a  postscript 
in  which  she  declined  her  share  in  the  reward  claimed 
by  Shaw,  who,  she  said,  took  upon  himself  alone,  by 
means  of  which  she  knew  nothing,  to  restore  the  dia- 
monds to  their  rightful  owners,  from  whom  the  Duke 
was  keeping  them. 

His  plan  thus  laid,  Shaw  went  to  work  to  obtain  the 
diamonds,  the  real  object  of  his  entering  the  Duke's 
service.  Clever  robber  that  he  was,  he  had  not  only 
studied  his  master  in  order  to  curry  favour  with  him, 
but  he  had  likewise  studied  the  strong-box  and  its 
arsenal,  and  was  ever  on  the  watch  for  some  chance 
moment  when  he  might  evade  the  threatening  diffi- 
culties and  open  it. 

This  strong-box,  or  coffer,  was  built  into  the  wall  of 
the  bedroom  adjoining  the  Duke's  study,  and  placed 
close  to  the  head  of  his  bed.  Its  iron  door  was  de- 
fended, as  I  have  said,  by  a  battery  of  revolvers ;  and 
outside  of  this  door  was  a  wooden  door,  concealed  by 
the  padded  silken  hangings  that  covered  the  walls  of 
the  room.  It  was  impossible  for  any  hand  ignorant 
of  the  secret  which  closed  and  defended  this  recep- 
tacle to  open  it  when  once  the  owner  had  closed  the 
iron  door. 

Now,  on  the  7th  of  December,  1863,  the  Duke  was 
expecting  his  jeweller  to  take  orders  for  the  setting  of 
certain  stones  which  he  had  taken  from  the  coffer. 
In  doing  so,  he  neglected,  contrary  to  his  usual  habit, 
to  lock  the  inner  iron  door.   Shaw,  who  had  entered 


178  MEMOIRS   OF 

the  Duke's  service  expressly  to  watch  for  such  a  mo- 
ment of  forgetfulness,  saw  with  joy  that  the  Duke  by 
not  locking  the  door  left  the  complicated  mechanism 
of  the  pistol-battery  unset.  The  Duke  then  locked  the 
outer  door,  the  key  of  which  never  left  his  person. 

After  waiting  in  vain  for  his  jeweller,  the  Duke  went 
out,  leaving  a  message  for  the  man,  if  he  came,  with 
Shaw,  who  had  his  entire  confidence.  Left  alone,  Shaw 
seized  the  opportunity  he  had  long  waited  and  prepared 
for.  Using  a  file,  which  he  always  carried,  he  forced 
the  lock  of  the  outer  door,  and  then  pulled  open  the 
iron  door  which  had  lost  its  power  to  fire  the  battery 
on  the  robber. 

Before  the  latter,  on  the  shelves,  in  the  drawers,  lay 
the  treasure  of  his  master,  —  diamonds,  jewels,  decora- 
tions, bags  of  gold,  —  a  treasure  amounting  to  over 
fifteen  millions.  Shaw  filled  his  pockets  and  a  linen 
bag  which  he  always  carried  with  him.  Then  he  closed 
the  door  behind  the  silk  hanging  which  hid  the  break- 
age, and  went  to  his  room  to  pack  his  bag  and  depart. 
He  went  to  the  railway  station  and  took  his  ticket  for 
Boulogne,  taking  care  to  leave  word  for  the  Duke,  with 
one  of  the  men-servants,  that  he  was  unwell  and  unable 
to  attend  him  that  evening. 

When  the  Duke  returned  and  received  the  message, 
he  became  suspicious.  Rushing  to  the  wooden  door 
masking  the  coffer,  he  found  the  lock  forced.  No  longer 
a  doubt !  he  was  robbed !  Opening  the  iron  door,  he 
found  that  over  two  millions  in  diamonds  and  quan- 
tities of  bank-notes  were  taken.   The  valet's  room  was 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  179 

searched;  its  condition  revealed  the  guilty  man.  On 
the  floor  lay  several  diamonds,  dropped  in  his  hasty 
flight. 

Complaint  was  instantly  made  to  the  Prefecture.  As 
complaints  of  this  character  made  by  such  person- 
ages usually  reached  me  as  soon  as  they  were  sent  in, 
I  received  an  order  to  attend  to  the  case  immediately. 
On  this  occasion,  the  London  police,  by  communi- 
cating with  the  French  police,  made  my  work  easy. 

I  have  already  said  that  Shaw,  shrewd  robber  that 
he  was,  had  tried  to  enlist  the  interests  and  gratitude 
of  the  Duke's  family,  and  thus  give  to  his  crime  a  cer- 
tain chivalrous  appearance.  That  which  he  hoped  to 
save  him  proved  his  undoing.  His  letter  to  the  English 
Prince  of  the  blood  roused  the  latter's  indignation ;  and, 
to  prevent  it  from  becoming  a  pretext  for  scandal,  he 
sent  it  to  the  London  police,  who,  in  turn,  forwarded 
the  information  to  the  Prefecture  in  Paris.  As  chief 
of  police,  I  received  the  communication  almost  as  soon 
as  I  had  taken  the  Duke  of  Brunswick's  deposition. 

I  repeat:  Shaw's  excess  of  precaution  defeated  him. 
He  had  added,  like  the  chambermaid,  a  postscript  to 
his  letter  in  which  he  said  he  would  wait  until  a  cer- 
tain time  at  Boulogne  the  arrival  of  an  emissary  from 
the  Prince  authorized  to  receive  the  diamonds  of  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick ;  for  which  service  he  claimed  for 
himself  the  sum  of  one  hundred  thousand  francs.  Thus 
Lwas  notified  of  the  robbery  and  of  the  direction  in 
which  the  robber  had  fled  almost  simultaneously. 

I  took  a  night  train  and  arrived  at  Boulogne  by  day- 


i8o  MEMOIRS   OF 

break.  Knowing  by  experience  the  habits  of  thieves  of 
the  Shaw  species,  I  sent  the  two  inspectors  I  had 
brought  with  me  to  the  best  hotels  in  the  city.  From 
them  I  soon  learned  that  Shaw  (whose  photograph  I  had 
in  my  pocket)  was  at  the  Hotel  d'Angleterre.  Thither 
I  proceeded  and  asked  to  see  him. 

When  we  met  I  presented  to  him  his  letter  to  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland  and  said  I  was  sent  to  meet 
him.  He  looked  discomfited,  but  was  still  more  so 
when  my  two  agents  joined  me,  and  I  showed  war- 
rant for  his  arrest.  Whether  he  would  or  not,  he  was 
forced  to  return  with  me  by  railroad,  leaving  the  Folke- 
stone steamer  to  depart  without  him,  and  without  the 
diamonds. 

Henry  Shaw  was,  in  reality,  a  professional  thief. 
English  by  birth,  he  had  lived  in  Prussia,  Poland,  and 
England,  changing  his  name  as  often  as  his  residence. 
He  had  committed  a  robbery  in  Warsaw  on  one  of  his 
own  uncles,  and  he  came  to  Paris  in  1862  for  the  express 
purpose  of  robbing  the  Duke  of  Brunswick.  He  was 
then  twenty-six  years  of  age,  and  the  type  of  a  class 
of  thieves  called  "  interesting  " :  thieves  without  shame, 
uniting  skill  and  cunning  with  audacity.  He  was  a  tall, 
thin,  slender  young  man,  always  irreproachably  well- 
dressed.  His  skin  was  pallid,  his  cheeks  hollow  and 
bony,  while  his  large  prominent  eyes  on  that  glaucous 
face  had  a  roguish  expression  mingled  with  irony. 

When  he  was  brought  before  the  court  of  assizes,  the 
Duke  of  Brunswick,  who  knew  of  his  letter  to  the  Duke 
of  Cumberland,  did  not  appear  as  witness.    He  was 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  i8i 

afraid  of  the  scandal  and  pretended  to  be  ill.  Having 
recovered  his  diamonds,  he  would  make  no  charge 
against  Shaw  except  in  a  vague  way  through  an  aide- 
de-camp.  The  judge,  more  enlightened  than  the  jury, 
said  to  the  prisoner : 

"  Shaw,  explain  your  case;  for  the  jury  do  not  know 
why  you  are  here." 

"Well,  then,  they  should  acquit  me,"  he  replied 
imperturbably. 

"  Do  not  aggravate  your  situation  by  misplaced  jokes," 
said  the  judge. 

"  I  am  not  joking,"  he  replied ;  "  if  I  am  not  con- 
demned, I  request  to  be  allowed  to  go." 

"  Answer,"  ordered  the  judge. 

"  I  have  nothing  to  answer,  inasmuch  as  my  accuser 
dares  not  accuse  me." 

"  He  cannot,"  said  the  judge. 

"  Because  he  has  nothing  to  say." 

The  rest  of  the  examination  was  on  the  same  tone. 
When  the  judge  asked  him  about  the  hundred  thou- 
sand francs  he  had  contrived  to  secrete,  Shaw 
replied : 

"  Probably  I  dropped  them  in  the  young  woman's 
room,  and  did  not  pick  them  up." 

"  Why  not  ? "  asked  the  judge. 

"  I  had  enough.  However,"  he  added,  "  if  you  will 
assure  me  that  the  girl  will  not  be  harassed  about 
those  hundred  thousand  francs,  I  will  tell  you  who 
she  is.** 

"  Your  request  is  inadmissible." 


i82  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  I  am  not  the  judge  of  that,"  replied  Shaw,  bowing 
ironically. 

"  But  I  am ! "  retorted  the  judge,  ending  the  scene 
amid  an  hilarity  that  was  very  unusual  in  that  court. 

But  the  celebrated  lawyer,  Lachaud,  gave  another 
turn  to  the  trial,  which,  so  far,  had  been  as  burlesque 
as  the  strange  personage  in  whose  behalf  it  was  brought. 
If  the  judge  could  not  make  the  thief  talk,  still  less 
could  he  silence  Maitre  Lachaud,  who  threatened  to 
say  too  much. 

"The  Duke  of  Brunswick,"  he  cried,  "instead  of 
coming  here,  sends  an  aide-de-camp.  My  client  holds 
his  tongue.   I  fully  expected  it — " 

"  You,  yourself,"  interrupted  the  judge,  "  talk  far  too 
much  in  pretending  you  have  nothing  to  say." 

"  The  silence  of  the  accused,"  replied  his  defender, 
"  is  based  on  considerations  that  you  understand  very 
well  —  considerations  that  permit  you  to  be  more  mer- 
ciful than  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  expects." 

The  thief,  however,  was  condemned  to  twenty  years 
at  the  galleys ;  but  he  kept  his  hundred  thousand  francs, 
which  could  not  go  to  the  Duke,  inasmuch  as  the  Duke 
never  claimed  them  out  of  fear  of  Maitre  Lachaud's 
tongue,  which  said  too  much  while  pretending  to  say 
nothing.  At  the  conclusion  of  the  trial  it  was  hard  to 
say  which  of  the  parties  was  most  to  be  commiserated, 
—  the  thief  who  had  made  a  hundred  thousand  francs, 
or  his  master  who  fled  from  a  court  where  he  feared 
revelations.  "Stolen  goods  bring  no  profit,"  says  the 
proverb. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  183 

The  diamonds  of  His  Royal  Highness,  filched  from 
the  national  treasury  where  they  belonged,  went  to 
enrich  a  republic  that  did  not  know  what  to  do  with 
them.  It  needed  a  Duke  of  Brunswick,  who  painted 
his  house  bright  red  and  trusted  a  thief,  to  make 
Switzerland  the  heir  of  what  belonged  to  Hanover. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

ANOTHER  INTERVIEW  WITH  M.  THIERS 


I  HAVE  had  the  satisfaction  in  my  long  career  to 
have  never  mingled  in  any  unworthy  machina- 
tions in  spite  of  the  times  in  which  I  lived ;  to  have 
never  served  either  the  cupidity  or  the  base  purposes 
of  the  courtiers  of  the  Empire,  too  ready  to  embitter 
still  further  the  rancours  of  their  master.  I  will  prove 
this  by  the  following  episode : 

One  day,  in  1863,  I  met  Mme.  X ,  elegantly 

dressed,  on  the  boulevard.  She  was  on  the  arm  of  a 
dandy  of  the  finest  variety,  —  waxed  moustache  and 
lemon-coloured  gloves.  She  came  up  to  me  with  her 
usual  dragoon  aplomb,  and  without  giving  her  brilliant 
escort  the  time  to  bow  to  me,  she  dropped  his  arm  and 
dismissed  him  with  a  lack  of  civility  that  amazed  me. 
He  sneaked  off,  like  a  cur  with  his  tail  between  his  legs. 
I  felt  pained  and  mortified  for  him,  and  I  asked : 

"  Who  is  that  gentleman  ?  and  why  do  you  send  him 
off  in  such  a  way }  " 

"  That  I "  she  said,  with  a  contemptuous  grimace ; "  oh 
that 's  a  species  one  cannot  keep  too  carefully  at  a  dis- 
tance lest  he  encroach  too  far.  That 's  my  secretary,  my 
factotum,  my  servant,  a  little  of  a  spy,  a  little  of  a  literary 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  185 

man,  a  little  of  everything!  In  reality,  he 's  nothing  at  all ! 
The  thing  eats,  drinks,  talks,  poses,  but  scratch  off  the 
varnish  on  that  semblance  of  a  man,  and  you  have  a 
manikin,  a  lay  figure.  He  thinks  he  is  somebody  because 
I  dress  him  and  lodge  him.  For  me,  he  is  a  servant, 
good  at  doing  anything^ 

Disgusted  with  her  cynicism  I  asked : 

"  Was  it  to  show  me  a  gentleman  of  that  species  that 
you  stopped  me }  " 

"  No,"  she  answered,  taking  my  arm  and  dropping  her 
voice;  "  it  was  to  give  you  an  order  from  the  Chateau." 

"  Ah !  "  I  exclaimed,  pinching  my  lips. 

"  To-morrow  —  to-night,"  she  added,  "  you  will  go 
and  see  M.  Thiers." 

"  /  go  and  see  M.  Thiers ! "  I  exclaimed.  "  I !  on  the 
terms  he  is  with  the  Chateau  ?  Nonsense ! " 

"  I  tell  you  you  will  go  to  see  M.  Thiers,  for  within 
an  hour  he  has  left  a  card,  turned  down,  at  your  door." 

"  Then  you  know  more  than  I  do,"  I  said ;  "  I  have 
not  been  home  since  morning." 

"  How  stupid  you  are !  "  she  laughed,  pressing  coquet- 
tishly  on  my  arm.  "  Is  n't  it  our  business  to  know  what 
other  people  do  not  know  ?  " 

"  True.  But  how  do  you  know  that  M.  Thiers  called 
in  person  at  my  house  ?" 

"  By  that  manikin  you  have  just  seen.  This  morning 
he  saw  M.  Thiers  in  the  street.  As  he  was  idling  about, 
waiting  for  me,  he  followed  him.  He  saw  him  enter  your 
house.  Naturally,  as  I  pay  him  to  report  everything,  he 
told  me  what  I  have  just  told  you.  Now  you  know  what 


i86  MEMOIRS   OF 

you  have  to  do  in  our  service  if  you  do  not  wish  to 
be  counted  among  our  enemies  as  the  confederate  of 
that  old  parliamentarian,  that  dangerous  veteran,  the 
Emperor's  enemy.  Good-day  to  you,  my  dear  Claude 
—  a  man  warned  is  twice  a  man." 

And  with  that  she  left  me,  planted  on  the  sidewalk, 
amazed  by  what  I  had  heard. 

At  this  period,  the  elections  of  1863  opened  the  doors 
of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  to  M.  Thiers  and  others 
who,  in  December,  185 1,  had  issued  from  them  to  go  to 
Mazas.  Force  had  driven  them  from  their  seats ;  the  law 
re-seated  them.  Parliamentarianism  was  being  re-con- 
stituted. The  France  of  law,  which  had  slept  for  a  dozen 
years,  was  awaking ;  she  opened  her  eyes,  roused  by  the 
Mexican  war  —  as  evil  a  dream  as  the  Coup  d' EtaL 
Coming  to  her  senses  once  more,  she  voted  for  Thiers. 

And  M.  Thiers,  who,  on  returning,  remembered  me 

because  he   had   need   of  me,  had,  as  Mme.  X 

asserted,  left  his  card  on  me  the  moment  he  resumed 
his  seat  in  the  Chamber.  On  receiving  it,  I  hastened  to 
pay  him  a  visit  at  his  house  in  the  rue  Saint-Georges. 

As  soon  as  he  saw  me,  he  took  me  into  his  private 
room,  with  the  greatest  mystery. 

"  My  dear  Claude,"  he  said  with  diabolical  animation, 
pressing  my  hand  effusively,  "  during  the  last  twelve 
years  I  have  not  forgotten  what  I  owe  you  for  warning 
me  that  I  was  about  to  be  arrested  by  the  myrmidons 
of  Bonaparte.  As  long  as  I  could  do  nothing  for  you 
I  kept  silence.  But  now  that  we  are  strong  through  the 
weakness  and  blunders  of  our  conquerors,  strong  by  the 


LOUIS   ADOLPHE   THIERS 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  187 

ruins  they  have  made  around  them,  now  I  come  to  you, 
and  say :  Be  one  of  us !  You  arrested  me  as  an  insurg- 
ent, an  anarchist ;  now  that  the  principle  of  national 
sovereignty,  that  great  principle  of  Liberty,  brings  me 
back  face  to  face  with  your  sovereign  to  remind  him 
of  the  laws  he  violated,  the  oaths  he  betrayed,  I  say  to 
you,  —  in  your  interests,  —  in  mine,  —  in  those  of 
France, — I  say  to  you,  my  dear  Claude,  be  one  of  us ! " 

"  Monsieur  Thiers,"  I  replied,  rising  and  taking  my 
hat,  "  if  you  have  a  memory,  so  have  L  I  remember  that 
formerly  you  told  me  to  do  my  duty,  nothing  but  my 
duty.  If  I  listened  to  you,  if  I  rallied  to  you,  I  should  be 
a  dishonest  man.  I  serve  my  sovereign,  as  you  told  me 
to  do,  loyally.  Be  our  sovereign  to-morrow,  and  the 
humble  policeman,  if  you  think  me  worthy,  will  have 
the  honour  of  serving  you  as  faithfully." 

"  Ah ! "  exclaimed  M.  Thiers,  excitedly,  not  expecting 
this  reply ;  "  so  you  are  enslaved  to  this  Empire,  you  !  " 

"  No,  Monsieur  Thiers,"  I  answered,  bowing  to  him, 
"  because,  when  I  leave  this  room  I  shall  forget,  for 
your  sake  and  for  mine,  this  conversation." 

"  Well,  well,"  said  M.  Thiers,  pursing  his  lips  and 
settling  his  spectacles,  "  you  have  remained  an  honest 
man,  for  which  I  congratulate  you.  But  take  care!  too 
much  self-abnegation  does  harm.  You  have  too  much 
of  it  ever  to  succeed.  —  Well,  I  had  a  great  many  things 
to  say  to  you ;  but  there 's  no  use  saying  them  now. 
Or  rather,  I  will  say  them  later." 

"  When  you  have  your  ministers,  my  chiefs,  at  the 
coming  revolution ! " 


i88  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  And  it  is  coming,  my  dear  Claude ;  coming  without 
delay ! "  exclaimed  Thiers,  a  diabolical  smile  twisting 
his  elfish  old  face. 

I  left  him.  When  I  returned  to  my  private  room  at 
the  Prefecture,  whom  should  I  find  installed  there  but 

Mme.   X ,    lying    comfortably   on   my    sofa,  and 

smoking  a  cigarette. 

"  Well ! "  she  demanded  the  moment  she  saw  me, 
"  what  did  that  old  baboon  of  a  Thiers,  that  bourgeois 
behind  the  age,  propose  to  you  ? " 

"  Nothing,"  I  said  curtly,  "  because,"  I  added,  not  to 
incur  the  wrath  of  the  irascible  spy, "  because  I  let  him 
know  at  once  that  I  am  not  a  politician,  but  a  simple 
police  officer." 

"  You  lie ! "  she  exclaimed.  "  If  any  one  else  had 
made  me  that  reply  I  'd  have  him  broke.  But  you,  my 
friend,  to  whom  I  owe  my  life,  I  spare  you.  I  leave  you 
to  your  secrets  with  that  obstinate  and  out-of-date  old 
Orleanist.  Good-bye !  I  tell  you  that  in  listening  to 
Thiers  and  his  rubbish,  you  are  a  ninny." 

So  saying,  out  she  went,  much  provoked,  slamming 
the  door  behind  her. 

To  this  had  we  come  under  the  Empire !  Neither 
friends  nor  enemies  of  that  power  could  admit,  so 
obliterated  was  all  moral  sense,  that  a  man  might  listen 
to  some  other  counsel  than  that  inspired  by  self-interest 
or  by  hatred ! 

It  was  my  acquaintance  with  M.  Thiers  that  first 
brought  me  into  the  society  of  men  of  letters,  which, 
since  then,  I  have  always  sought.  Their  existence,  on 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  189 

the  outside,  has  been  to  me  a  relaxation  from  my  concen- 
trated life,  which,  at  certain  points,  is  not  unlike  that  of 
writers  and  artists.  A  good  policeman,  while  ever  on  his 
guard  against  passions,  in  order  to  be  cool  in  analyzing 
effects,  is  none  the  less  inquisitive  and  inquiring.  What  ' 
a  subject  of  study  for  a  policeman  is  the  profession  of 
an  artist  or  a  man  of  letters,  called  upon  to  reproduce 
all  the  follies  of  the  human  race. 

Our  role,  however,  is  far  less  enviable  than  that  of  the 
artist  or  writer ;  for  the  policeman  is  required  to  mingle  in 
a  thousand  dramas  that  the  artist  only  analyzes  to  enjoy. 
This  affinity  between  the  two  vocations  exhibits  itself  in 
very  different  ways :  the  one  by  skill  and  dexterity  joined 
to  activity  ;  the  other  by  the  most  complete  carelessness 
and  the  greatest  naivete.  Perhaps  it  is  for  this  reason 
that  I  have  always  sought  —  I,  the  man  of  duty,  the 
slave  of  my  vocation  —  the  men  who  affect  disdain  for 
social  conditions  and  the  ordinary  rules  of  life.  The 
tone,  the  spirit  of  the  lettered  and  artistic  race  refreshed 
me  delightfully ;  its  naivete  amazed  me ;  it  did  me  good, 
when  I  escaped  from  the  centres  of  crime  and  the  hell 
of  corruption  and  duplicity. 

From  1848  to  1858  I  was  in  charge  of  the  police 
supervision  of  the  theatres :  and  I  assert  that  I  have  seen 
defile  before  me,  not  only  the  most  celebrated  artists 
and  men  of  letters,  but  also  the  most  famous  political 
comedians  of  our  times. 

I  have  seen,  after  the  events  of  June,  1848,  —  I  have 
seen  with  my  own  eyes  Prince  Louis-Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, at  that  very  time  aspiring  to  the  imperial  purple, 


I90  MEMOIRS   OF 

appear  in  the  box  of  a  theatre  with  his  face  and  hands 
dirty,  to  curry  favour  with  the  sovereign  people  in  the 
gallery. 

I  have  seen  Victor  Hugo,  standing  on  one  foot,  re- 
fuse a  stool  oflered  to  him  from  below  by  the  malicious 
Beranger,  that  he  might  continue  the  cynosure  of  all 
the  eyes  of  the  adoring  crowd  that  acclaimed  him 
from  the  gallery. 

I  have  seen  Rachel,  the  greatest  tragedienne  of  mod- 
ern times,  who  had  had  for  her  Maecenases  the  courtiers 
of  the  most  liberal  of  monarchies,  sing  the  "  Marseil- 
laise "  before  the  footlights,  and  then  drive  off  in  the 
carriage  of  the  Caesars  to  the  imperial  palace. 

I  have  seen  a  little  author,  who  could  not  pay  for 
his  glass  of  beer  at  the  Cafe  des  Mousquetaires,  faint 
away  on  hearing  a  fusillade  on  the  Boulevard  des  Capu- 
cines,  and  sign,  three  days  later,  as  secretary  of  the 
Provisional  Government,  the  proclamation  announcing 
to  the  French  nation  the  appointment  of  its  new  sover- 
eigns. 

I  have  seen  strolling  players  of  the  lowest  class,  on 
the  eve  of  1848,  become  on  the  morrow  officers  of  the 
body-guard  of  Caussidiere. 

I  have  seen  actresses,  having  sung  upon  the  stage 
the  "  Girondins "  and  the  "  Chant  du  Depart,"  jump 
into  the  coupes  of  the  Empire  which  were,  invariably, 
stationed  from  eleven  o'clock  till  midnight  at  the  side 
doors  of  the  minor  theatres. 

I  have  seen  the  wife  of  a  member  of  the  Provisional 
Government  who,  the  night  before,  could  not  pay  her 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  191 

coal-man,  drive  to  the  theatre  in  one  of  the  carriages 
of  the  ex-king,  taking  the  precaution  to  stop  on  the 
way  and  proudly  pay  that  coal-bill. 

What  have  I  not  seen  ?  All  that  human  folly  can 
produce,  down  to  Lucien  de  la  Hode,  acclaimed,  on 
the  morrow  of  1848,  by  an  enthusiastic  crowd  at  the 
theatre  of  the  Porte  Saint-Martin,  before  he  was  con- 
demned to  death  by  his  comrades  whom  he  had  again 
and  again  sold  to  the  police. 

Such  follies  have  since  been  enacted  in  a  way  that 
was  equally  grotesque,  though  never  in  so  bloody  a 
manner  as  under  the  Commune.  Where  will  they  stop 
when  the  tide  of  revolution  again  casts  upon  us  the 
heel-taps  of  our  society  in  ruins? — But  these  retro- 
spective, or  perspective,  digressions  are  carrying  me  too 
far,  and  they  are  out  of  my  proper  province. 

After  the  events  of  1848,  when  I  became  commissary 
of  the  theatres,  I  installed  myself,  far  from  my  office,  in 
the  rue  Notre  Dame  de  Lorette.  I  entered  again  into 
the  merry,  witty,  heedless  life  of  the  artistic  and  liter- 
ary bohemia  grouped  around  -me ;  the  scenes  of  which, 
always  varied,  were  renewed  like  a  fascinating  pan- 
orama to  my  astonished  eyes.  I  thus  passed  many 
agreeable  moments  with  persons  who  made  me  forget 
in  their  imaginary  world  the  horrible  or  repugnant 
dramas  I  was  forced  to  follow  in  real  life. 

It  must  be  said  that  true  artists,  true  writers,  have 
ways  of  looking  at  things  that  belong  to  them  alone. 
They  even  astound  and  stupefy  the  policeman,  accus- 
tomed to  live  among  scoundrels  almost  as  strong  as 


192  MEMOIRS   OF 

himself  in  dealing  with  justice  and  the  law.  Therefore, 
with  some  exceptions,  theatrical  people  and  men  of 
letters  are  the  last  persons  to  become  the  objects  of  a 
criminal  prosecution.  Their  levity,  their  want  of  logic, 
their  inconsistency,  are  all  so  many  safeguards  against 
themselves. 

For  one  Scribe,  who  never  trusted  anything  to 
chance, — for  one  Hugo,  who,  like  Scribe,  but  in  a 
higher  way,  never  trifled  with  fortune,  —  you  will  find 
a  hundred  Gringoires,  and  quite  as  many  Alexandre 
Dumas,  seniors.  Inconstancy  and  levity,  —  those  are 
the  birthmarks  of  talent,  the  characteristics  of  genius. 

I  can  still  see  Alexandre  Dumas,  the  elder,  that  great 
child,  with  a  mulatto  face,  smiling  and  sympathetic, 
as  he  entered  his  Theatre  historique  on  the  evening 
before  his  bankruptcy,  and  asked  his  box-keeper: 

"  How  much  are  the  receipts  ? " 

"  Two  hundred  francs,"  replied  the  man ;  "  but  the 
gas  company  refuse  to  supply  us,  and  here  are  six 
hundred  francs  in  protested  notes." 

"  Pooh !  we  '11  take  the  two  hundred,"  said  Dumas. 
"  It  will  be  daylight  to-morrow !  Before  the  bailiffs  get 
here,  let  us  go  and  drink  a  punch  out  of  that  money." 

I  had,  myself,  to  act  against  Alexandre  Dumas,  who 
never  had  time  to  add  up  a  sum ;  he  was  always  too 
busy  writing  pages  to  supply  the  deficit  of  his  subtrac- 
tions.   It  was  under  the  following  circumstances: 

After  the  bankruptcy  of  his  theatre,  Dumas  was  so 
oblivious  of  law  that  he  still  wore  the  cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honour.   The  police  did  not  wish  to  proceed  against 


ALEXANDRE   DUMAS 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  193 

a  man  of  such  value  and  importance  as  if  he  were  an 
ordinary  misdemeanant,  and  I  was  instructed  by  the 
court  to  ask  Alexandre  Dumas,  a  bankrupt,  not  to  wear 
the  decoration. 

I  presented  myself  to  the  illustrious  writer.  I  ex- 
plained to  him  the  unpleasant  errand  on  which  I  was 
sent.  I  begged  him  not  to  expose  himself  to  remark, 
but  to  submit  to  the  law  by  depriving  his  buttonhole 
of  its  red  ribbon,  inasmuch  as  he  was  temporarily 
marked  off  the  roll  of  the  Legion  of  Honour. 

"  Very  well,  Papa  Claude,"  said  the  big  child,  wag- 
ging his  head  and  shrugging  his  shoulders  in  a  way  he 
had.   "  We  '11  conform  to  the  law." 

Then,  pulling  out  a  drawer  beneath  his  desk  (on 
which  lay  sheets  of  paper  covered  with  his  large  and 
magnificent  writing),  this  colossus  of  the  feuilleton 
showed  me  a  collection  of  the  crosses  of  every  order 
upon  earth,  saying,  with  his  broad  smile : 

"  What  will  you  give  for  all  that  hardware .? " 

I  was  about  to  withdraw,  grieved  and  ashamed  for 
this  wonderful  writer,  whose  merits  had  been  so  glori- 
ously recognized  and  rewarded  by  all  the  Courts  of 
Europe,  when  a  witness  of  the  scene,  a  monarchist, 
sulky  with  the  Republic,  said  to  him : 

"  It  is  under  a  Republic  that  you  are  treated  in  this 
way.  Why  the  devil,  my  dear  Dumas,  are  you,  an 
intelligent  man,  a  Republican  ? " 

"  Only  to  be  fifteen  days  in  advance  of  you,"  he 
replied,  as  he  showed  me  out,  anxious  to  be  done 
with  me  and  the  visitor,  that  he  might  finish  his  "  copy," 


194  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

the  only  thing  that  he,  who  forgot  everything,  never 
forgot. 

Men  of  letters  are  great  children.  Thoughtless  about 
the  things  of  life,  they  are  not  changed  since  the  days 
of  La  Fontaine.  Artists,  men  of  letters,  theatrical  men, 
painters,  musicians,  are  the  most  artless  creatures  in 
the  world.  The  faithless  cashiers  who  discount  their 
weaknesses  and  defraud  their  enterprises  prove  it.  The 
Society  of  Musical  Composers  and  Editors  was  de- 
frauded by  its  founder  of  40,000  francs.  The  Society 
of  Dramatic  Authors  had  a  bank  drama,  in  which  its 
founder,  M.  Scribe,  saved  the  situation  by  something 
more  than  a  comic  dodge.  The  Society  of  Men  of 
Letters  had  to  send  one  of  its  light-hearted  cashiers  to 
Mazas.  Without  Nadar,  the  great  and  generous  Nadar, 
who  remembered  that  in  his  own  bohemian  days  that 
cashier,  more  careless  than  dishonest,  had  helped  him, — 
without  Nadar  the  man  would  have  gone  to  prison  for 
years.  He  pulled  him  out  of  the  wasp's  nest  by  going 
security  for  him ;  and  not  only  that,  but  to  prove  him 
as  innocent  as  he  was  thought  guilty,  he  made  him 
cashier  and  confidential  man  in  his  own  photographic 
establishment ;  but  he  did  not  keep  him  long  ! 

They  are  all  alike,  these  brilliant  men  of  genius ! 


CHAPTER  XV 

JOURNALISM   UNDER   THE   EMPIRE 


UNDER  the  Empire  the  Chamber  was  dumb, 
the  press  spoke  only  to  be  gagged.  When,  in 
1864,  the  country  recovered  some  liberty,  it 
may  be  said  that  nearly  all  the  journalists  came  from 
the  Ministry  of  the  Interior,  passing  through  the  cab- 
inet of  the  Prefecture  of  Police. 

After  the  election  to  the  Chamber  of  five  members 
of  the  Opposition,  the  press  breathed  again.  It  felt 
a  trifle  freer ;  the  Government  was  forced  to  yield,  in 
a  measure,  to  the  demands  of  a  press,  regenerated  by 
the  tribune.  M.  Thiers,  the  most  influential  man  of  the 
press  and  the  tribune  of  former  days,  had  now  resumed 
his  seat  on  the  parliamentary  benches.  Overthrown 
a  dozen  years  earlier,  with  the  statue  of  Law,  by  the 
soldiers  of  the  coming  Empire,  this  son  of  the  Revolu- 
tion had  now  returned  armed  with  all  his  rights. 

Henceforth  Liberty  must  be  reckoned  with.  The 
mists  of  night  had  passed ;  the  sun  of  July  14  rose  to 
warm  the  hearts  of  the  exiles  of  December.  Public 
opinion  began  to  speak  in  the  newspapers,  although, 
to  tell  the  truth,  they  only  echoed  the  Palais-Royal 
[Orleanists],  spiteful  to  the  Tuileries,  and  were  actually 


196  MEMOIRS   OF 

the  organs  of  a  liberal  deputy,  a  spy  of  the  Chateau 
on  his  Republican  editors.  The  two  leading  papers, 
the  Opinion  National  and  the  Courrier  du  Dimanche, 
had  for  directors,  the  first,  M.  Adolphe  Gueroult,  very 
dear  to  the  Palais-Royal ;  the  second,  a  Wallachian,  who 
well  knew  the  way  to  the  Tuileries. 

What  these  journals  of  the  moderate  Opposition 
received  of  communiques  pour  rire  [humbug  tips]  would 
be  incredible.  They  emanated  from  the  cabinet  of  the 
official  press,  whose  managers  almost  daily  made  up 
pages  for  those  two  journals.  These  "  communications  " 
rained  upon  them  like  a  curse  from  heaven  ;  but  to  the 
good  public  they  seemed  to  be  veritable  benedictions. 
At  last,  public  opinion  was  satisfied ;  liberty  breathed 
again ;  and  the  simple  public  never  suspected  that  it 
was  the  Government  that  was  half-opening  the  doors 
and  windows  of  the  Opposition  —  the  official  Opposi- 
tion —  press ! 

The  police  had  formal  orders,  emanating  from  the 
office  of  M.  Lagrange,  to  keep  close  watch  on  all 
newspapers,  great  and  small,  born  or  to  be  born.  They 
were  to  be  either  smothered  or  turned.  The  Chateau 
possessed  an  amiable  deputy  who  had  a  particular  gift 
for  turning  an  Opposition  paper.  Through  the  great 
experience  of  this  deputy,  the  dreaded  journal  soon 
became  either  inoffensive  or  still-born.  The  affair  was 
managed  as  follows : 

When  a  citizen,  Orleanist  or  Republican,  rich  and 
ambitious,  felt  the  need  of  creating  a  liberal  sheet,  this 
liberal  deputy  was  sent  to  him.    The  deputy,  a  former 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  197 

journalist  himself  under  the  late  monarchy,  endeavoured 
to  show  the  proprietor  of  the  new  paper  that  the 
Empire  was  the  most  liberal  of  governments.  He 
proved  it  (being  secretly  in  the  pay  of  the  Chateau)  by 
assuring  him  he  should  be  relieved  of  giving  bonds  in 
a  sum  of  money  if  that  sum  were  applied  towards  the 
salary  of  a  sub-editor  to  be  selected  by  himself. 

It  was  very  rare  that  the  liberal  citizen  refused  these 
suggestions  of  the  liberal  deputy.  However  liberal 
a  citizen  may  be,  he  is  none  the  less  flattered  to  be  con- 
sidered a  something  by  the  Government  he  wishes  to 
tease,  and  so  obtain,  as  the  result  of  his  teasing,  the 
cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honour,  which  pleases  his 
wife  and  gives  prestige  to  his  name.  Then  the  sheet 
announced  as  liberal,  does  not  answer  the  expecta- 
tions of  its  subscribers;  who  fall  off  and  it  dies.  Or 
it  becomes  a  journal  of  the  Empire,  receiving  "  com- 
munications "  from  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior. 

At  this  period  a  journalist,  returning  from  Africa, 
created,  under  the  patronage  of  the  Chateau,  a  corre- 
spondence which,  by  Machiavellian  contrivance,  was 
entered  into  and  published  by  editors  who  had  been 
proscribed  in  December,  185 1.  When  the  evolution 
towards  liberalism  was  forced  upon  the  Empire,  this 
African  was  ordered  to  entice  from  the  ranks  of  these 
proscribed  ones  certain  political  chroniclers  who  would 
be  willing  to  wTite  under  his  dictation  that  the  Emperor, 
the  author  of  the  book  on  "  Pauperism,"  was  the  most 
liberal  of  the  sovereigns  of  Europe.  This  correspond- 
ence was  the  egg  of  the  Ollivier  Ministry. 


198  MEMOIRS   OF 

Certain  foreigners  also  had  a  newspaper  of  their  own, 
upholding  the  Hberal  Empire,  and  its  principle  of  great 
protestant  nationalities.  The  countess,  La  Prussienne, 
received  part  of  the  money  that  fell  into  the  hands  of 
these  men.  Their  newspaper,  which  offended  all  the 
religious  convictions  of  the  nation,  died,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded, also  under  feminine  supervision,  by  the  Revue 
des  races  latines. 

At  this  epoch  the  public  moral  sense  was  so  obliterated 
that  it  knew  not  how  to  distinguish  good  from  evil,  the 
just  from  the  unjust.  The  new  generation  had  grown 
up  in  a  leaden  atmosphere,  and  knew  not  how  or  where 
to  turn  its  aspirations.  Humiliated  by  the  present, 
furious  with  the  past,  anxious  about  the  future,  which 
seemed  more  darksome  even  than  the  present,  it  laughed 
at  all  things  in  order  not  to  weep.  This  brave  youth  of 
the  nation,  longing  for  a  pilot  to  guide  it  on  a  sea 
without  a  shore  and  without  horizon,  was  as  cruelly 
misled  by  these  journalists  of  a  humbugging  Opposition 
as  it  was  by  the  open  supporters  of  the  Empire  who,  in 
their  journals,  tried  forever  to  deceive  it! 

The  police  never  quitted  by  a  hair's  breadth  these 
journalists,  preparing  for  the  struggle  under  .tents  that 
were  furnished  by  the  Government.  But  other  spies 
w^ere  spying  upon  both,  and  these  spies  were  — 
Germans. 

Among  the  journalists  most  closely  watched  by  the 
police  at  that  time  was  Villemessant,  the  director  of  the 
Figaro,  that  cradle  of  the  celebrated  lanternist,  Henri 
Rochefort.    I  knew  Villemessant  at  a  time  when  he 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  199 

was  very  far  from  being  the  fortunate  director  of  the 
Figaro,  I  had  to  follow  him  through  all  his  numerous 
judicial  tribulations.  I  can  say  that  this  astounding 
journalist,  full  of  dash  and  initiative,  was  worth  far  more 
than  many  of  his  brotherhood  who  have  stoned  him. 
His  greatest  wrong-doing  was  that  he  shrank  from 
nothing  that  could  produce  a  good  jest  of  his  brew. 
Without  bitterness,  without  malignity,  he  was  the  first 
to  repair  any  harm  he  had  done  to  others.  After  all,  in 
the  journalistic  battle  that  Villemessant  fought  to  his 
last  hour,  he  harmed  himself  only ;  to  all  others  he  did 
good. 

When  I  was  commissary  of  police  attached  to  the 
theatres,  I  was  constantly  with  him ;  he  was  then  a 
petty  journalist,  with  very  strong  desires.  His  sheets, 
announcing  and  puffing  the  various  plays  and  sold  at 
the  doors  of  the  theatres,  depended  on  the  Prefecture ; 
and  he  had  need  of  me  to  discipline  his  numerous 
vendors,  who  kept  up  a  rivalry  with  those  of  the 
Entr'acte,  Though  Villemessant  was  not  at  that  time 
celebrated,  he  was  already  somebody.  He  played  high 
at  the  Cafe  Bonvalet ;  he  lived  as  a  lord  among  the  rich 
merchants  of  the  Markets,  worthy  inhabitants  of  the 
Temple  quarter,  whom  he  quizzed  with  inexhaustible 
fun.  His  rabelaisian  sallies  exploded  in  phrases  that 
were  his  alone.  He  had  already  seen  much  and  lived 
much. 

At  a  period  when  everybody  courted  the  Republic, 
he  founded  two  little  fault-finding  and  satirical  sheets 
—  the  Bouche  de  Fer  and  Le  Petit  Caporal,    He  was 


200  MEMOIRS   OF 

legitimist,  but  I  do  not  think  that  his  faith  in  his  prince 
was  very  robust ;  what  I  do  know  is,  that  his  faith  in 
himself  was  mighty.  Gil  Bias  and  Figaro  —  he  in- 
carnated himself  in  those  types,  by  the  self-assurance 
of  the  one  and  the  shrewdness  of  the  other.  What  he 
derived  from  both  was  their  spirit  of  mischief. 

Though  he  began  as  an  annoncier  [puffer  of  plays], 
the  lowest  of  all  trades,  it  was  only  to  take  a  better 
spring  to  the  heights  of  journalism.  A  gentleman  by 
birth  [Jean  Hippolyte  de  Villemessant],  with  Prud- 
homme's  ideas  in  politics,  he  desired  to  grow  rich  in 
his  profession  that  he  might  crush  by  his  luxury  the 
bourgeois  crowd  he  laughed  at  and  envied  only  for  their 
enjoyments.  I  can  see  him  now  with  his  blue  coat  and 
brass  buttons,  his  low  shoes  and  their  rosettes  in  place 
of  the  steel  buckles  of  the  old  regime.  I  recall  his 
calm,  penetrating  eyes,  his  short,  thick  hair  planted  on 
a  low  forehead,  his  sensual  lips,  his  large  chin,  already 
double,  showing  a  will  subject  only  to  consuming 
aspirations. 

Such  was  Villemessant  at  forty  years  of  age.  He  was 
still  in  search  o^  his  career,  having,  like  Beaumarchais, 
touched  at  all  things  —  art,  politics,  commerce,  litera- 
ture. He  watched  for  a  Maecenas,  who  never  came 
because  at  this  time  such  beings  existed  no  longer.  He 
sought  for  fortune  and  never  found  it  till  his  malice 
and  his  flair  showed  him  that  the  Maecenas  of  the 
nineteenth  century  was  Mr.  Everybody,  and  to  win 
him  one  must  reckon  above  all  on  the  follies  of  others. 
A  great  mystifier  and  hoaxer,  he  loved  nothing  so  well 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  201 

as  to  play  on  the  foibles  of  others ;  and  it  was  through 
his  innate  taste  for  such  diversion  that  in  the  end  he 
succeeded  in  founding  the  most  inquisitive  and  the  best 
informed,  the  most  interesting  and  the  most  read  of  all 
Parisian  newspapers. 

Villemessant  had  but  one  rival.  But  the  tempera- 
ment of  that  rival  —  quite  as  original  as  himself  but 
with  less  charm  —  prevented  a  serious  opposition. 
More  Parisian  than  Villemessant,  this  compeer  in 
gaiety  never  aspired  to  the  society  of  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Germain.  Democrat,  and  rival  of  the  royalist, 
he  was  satisfied  to  frolic  for  "  the  street."  The  two 
founders  of  the  reckless  \_gaulois'\  press  of  Paris  were 
Villemessant,  father  of  the  Figaro,  and  Commerson, 
father  of  the  Tintamarre,  Henri  Rochefort  was  their 
legitimate  successor. 

From  these  two  poles  gushed  the  stinging  flame 
of  satire  on  a  territory  that  these  jesters  really  cared 
nothing  for,  namely,  politics.  Commerson  and  Ville- 
messant, Titans  of  farce,  brothers  in  loose  jesting,  were, 
nevertheless,  fraternal  enemies.  But  it  was  not  politics 
that  divided  them.  No,  indeed ;  they  would  not  have 
fought  for  a  trifle  such  as  that !  What  estranged  them 
was  the  matter  of  subscribers,  the  question  of  advertise- 
ments. They  attacked  each  other  before  the  public 
exactly  like  hucksters  in  a  market. 

After  the  Coup  d'Etat,  Villemessant  was  still  in 
search  of  his  career,  while  Commerson  had  found  his 
by  creating  the  Tintamarre,  One  day  Villemessant,  who 
no  longer  wrote  his  little  theatre  sheets,  which  had  been 


202  MEMOIRS   OF 

swept  away  by  Morny  's  broom,  went  to  see  his  friend 
and  addressed  him  somewhat  as  follows : 

"  Comrade !  my  prince  is  too  honest !  He  has  pre- 
judices that  I  don't  share.  I  am  reduced  to  inaction. 
Inaction  at  forty  years  of  age!  that's  tough!  Now, 
inasmuch  as  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  political 
rancours  we  have  the  same  way  of  thinking,  though 
with  very  different  objects,  I  have  come  to  offer  you 
my  services.  Give  me  your  book  of  subscribers  and 
advertisers,  and  if  my  long  experience  in  journalism 
can  be  of  use  to  you,  I  will  give  it  to  you  with  all  my 
heart.  As  I  can't  be  useful  to  my  people,  timid  things  ! 
I  am  ready  to  help  the  cleverest  man  I  know.  It  is 
a  White  ready  to  be  useful  to  a  Red !  A  good  com- 
bination that!  The  present  people  have  broken  my 
cane,  and  I  '11  break  another  on  the  backs  of  my  cra- 
vens." 

Commerson,  very  trusting  when  his  vanity  or  his 
interests  were  flattered,  agreed,  and  he  opened  his 
books  to  Villemessant.  At  the  last  moment,  however, 
Villemessant  was  touched  by  remorse,  thinking  his 
"  comrade  "  too  innocent. 

"But,"  he  added,  "suppose  I  turn  traitor.?  Suppose 
I  found  a  paper  like  yours,  won't  you  regret  having 
shown  me  your  book  of  addresses } " 

"  My  son,  I  'm  not  afraid  of  you ! "  retorted  Com- 
merson in  his  Olympian  tone.  "There  is  but  one 
Tintamarre  !  " 

That  was  true;  but  eight  days  later  there  was  a 
Figaro, 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  203 

However,  when  Villemessant  became  the  most  suc- 
cessful journalist  of  his  time,  he  redeemed,  by  acts  of 
extreme  beneficence,  by  freaks  of  unparalleled  gener- 
osity, these  tricks,  either  rash  or  cruel,  to  which  his 
craving  for  enjoyments  and  his  love  of  hoaxing  prompted 
him.  A  volume  would  not  suffice  to  relate  them.  I  have 
dwelt  on  the  portraits  of  these  two  men  because  they 
are  the  most  singular  and  interesting  figures  of  Paris- 
ian journalism  during  the  Empire.  They  left  a  joint 
offspring,  issuing  from  their  very  being  —  Henri 
Rochefort. 

These  two  journalists,  two  singular  personalities 
dating  from  the  generation  of  1830,  closed  behind 
them  the  gates  of  bohemia,  and  died  with  the  key  in 
their  pockets. 

Commerson  could  not  to-day  pawn  his  watch  to 
found  the  Tintamarre ;  Villemessant  could  not  now 
found  his  Figaro  with  the  savings  of  a  few  toothless 
bagmen.  Ingenious  minds,  free  from  prejudices,  they 
founded,  without  capital,  that  which  all  the  capital  on 
earth  could  not  have  founded — Parisian  journaHsm. 
They  established  its  power  by  that  which  is  least 
stable  —  satire.  They  did  much  against  an  epoch  of 
which  they  were  not  the  outcome.  Inextinguishable 
laughers,  they  attacked,  solely  to  create  laughter,  the 
regime  of  an  empire  that  amazed  them. 

The  police  of  that  period  prepared,  as  I  have  already 
said,  a  large  part  of  the  political  newspapers.  Their 
editors  were  often  men  bought  by  the  Prefecture; 
though  the  younger  men,  pupils  of  the  writers  of  1848, 


204  MEMOIRS   OF 

thought  it  strange  that  before  they  could  give  their 
thoughts  to  the  public  they  must  go,  at  the  word  of 
command,  for  political  news  to  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior,  and  for  general  items  to  the  Prefecture  of 
Police.  Against  these  free  lances  of  the  Parisian  press 
it  was  difficult  to  take  strong  action.  When  bom- 
barded by  the  magistracy,  they  never  could  be  brought 
to  believe  that,  for  having  exploded  a  few  satirical  jests 
against  the  Tuileries  out  of  pure  gaiety  of  heart,  they 
were  really  threatened  with  the  anger  of  their  masters. 

But  if  an  old  stager  like  Villemessant  laughed  at  the 
pasteboard  thunderbolts  of  Jupiter  Caesar,  and  asked, 
when  taken  to  the  Conciergerie,  for  fresh  wall-paper  on 
the  cell  he  knew  so  well,  the  young  fry  of  the  inde- 
pendent press  did  not  go  to  prison  so  gaily.  I  have 
seen  many  a  young  journalist  weep  when  I  showed 
him  my  warrant  for  his  arrest  —  warrants  of  which  my 
pockets  were  full.  Later,  these  very  men  became  polit- 
ical personages  only  because  they  had  slept  against 
their  will  in  Sainte-Pelagie  —  less  through  the  fault 
of  their  articles,  usually  immature  and  colourless,  than 
through  the  over-zeal  of  the  henchmen  of  imperialism. 

How  many  "  irreconcilables  "  were  recruited  in  this 
way  to  the  Opposition,  then  organizing  under  M.  Thiers 
without  a  sound!  —  disciplining  themselves,  like  the 
companions  of  Ulysses,  before  entering  the  wooden 
horse  that  was  to  batter  down  the  imperial  edifice! 
These  recruits  became  a  legion  when  the  pistol  of 
Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte  brought  down  the  youngest 
of  those  journalists  and  decided  the  fate  of  the  Empire. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  205 

That  knell,  which  echoed  from  Auteuil  to  the  Tuileries, 
would  not  have  made  Napoleon  III  turn  pale  if  he  had 
had  the  sense  to  laugh  at  Rochefort  instead  of  hunting 
him  down  by  his  private  police. 

If  the  politicians  at  the  Prefecture  had  not  forced 
Rochefort  to  quit  the  Figaro^  he  would  not  have  started 
the  Lanterne,  and  the  Lanterne  would  not  have  led 
to  the  deputation. 

But  if  the  Emperor  knew  not  how  to  laugh,  his 
Court  did.  At  Compiegne,  where  the  courtiers,  men 
and  women,  clustered,  the  Lanterne  was  ever  in  de- 
mand. Nothing  amused  them  more  than  to  see  their 
history  traced  in  lines  of  fire  by  that  satirist.  Nothing 
pleases  valets  so  much  as  scandals  told  against  their 
masters.  At  Compiegne  Rochefort's  Lanterne  was  in 
every  hand,  —  those  of  the  coachmen,  those  of  the 
seigneurs. 

At  Compiegne  other  events  took  place,  all  tending  to 
one  result — the  fall  of  the  Empire.  Towards  the  end  of 
the  year  1869,  the  Emperor  was  alone  one  evening  in 
the  Chateau  about  nine  o'clock.  He  walked  up  and 
down  the  room,  visibly  preoccupied  and  apparently 
waiting  for  some  one.  The  palace  was  plunged  in  dark- 
ness and  deep  silence.  The  great  vestibule,  where  a 
footman  was  dozing,  was  scarcely  lighted.  In  a  salon 
adjoining  the  private  apartment  of  the  Emperor,  a  few 
ordnance  officers  were  seated  at  a  distance  from  their 
captain,  who  was  reading,  with  a  bored  air,  in  the  chim- 
ney-corner. 

Beyond  the  courtyard,  near  the  forest,  a  few  faint 


2o6  MEMOIRS   OF 

lights  showed  groups  of  men,  pacing  to  and  fro,  be- 
tween the  forest  and  the  courtyard.  These  men 
formed  a  squad  from  the  Prefecture.  By  their  attitude 
it  was  evident  that  some  one  was  expected,  some  one 
whose  coming  was  both  desired  and  dreaded. 

Who  was  it  ? 

It  was  fimile  Ollivier. 

Nine  strokes  sounded  from  the  clock  —  the  same 
that  had  marked  the  hour  of  the  first  interview  between 
Napoleon  I  and  Marie  Louise  in  that  very  palace.  A 
movement  was  seen  at  the  edge  of  the  forest.  It  was 
caused  by  the  police  of  Paris  gathering  closer  around 
the  man  whom  the  Emperor  awaited. 

Surely  it  was  a  strange  thing  to  see  an  Emperor,  who, 
to  the  eyes  of  France,  seemed  to  be  the  master  of  all 
things,  reduced  to  receive  in  profound  mystery  the  man 
whom  he  had  selected  to  restore  to  the  nation  the 
liberty  he  had  taken  from  it,  the  prestige  he  had  caused 
it  to  lose.  Yet  to  this  had  the  Emperor  come  in  1869. 
He  escaped  from  the  Tuileries  because  Prussian  spies 
swarmed  in  his  apartments ;  at  Compiegne  he  escaped 
his  own  courtiers  to  receive  a  man,  formerly  his  enemy, 
who  promised  him  the  support  of  those  who  he  might 
have  known  must  ever  remain  his  implacable  enemies. 

Morny  had  crowned  the  conspirator-prince  at  a  period 
when  the  Empire  had  been  prepared  for  by  an  abortive 
Republic,  fimile  Ollivier  could  only  hasten  the  fall  of 
that  Empire  by  blunders  that  gave  reason  to  a  Re- 
public. Avoiding  the  guard-house,  this  renegade  of  "  the 
five  "  was  forced  to  issue  from  the  forest  like  a  robber 


EMILE    OLLIVIER 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  207 

from  a  wood.  The  Emperor  at  all  periods  of  his  life 
and  reign  liked  above  all  things  surprises,  circumven- 
tions, and  the  wiles  of  the  police. 

Emile  Ollivier  became  Minister  because  that  demo- 
crat, getting  into  the  skin  of  an  imperialist,  persuaded 
the  Emperor,  and  the  Empress  who  believed  him,  that 
the  youth  of  France  was  ready  to  follow  him  against 
the  old  Napoleonic  party.  Yet  the  strange  manner  in 
which  Ollivier  entered  Compiegne  by  night,  his  head 
hidden  in  a  muffler,  without  his  spectacles,  and  escorted 
by  policemen,  could  not  have  given  the  Emperor  any 
great  guarantee  of  success.  In  fact,  this  face-about  of 
the  Empire  towards  Liberty  simply  unchained  her  to 
its  ruin ! 

Orf  this  evening,  when  the  Emperor  had  carefully 
evaded  the  Court  to  meet  Ollivier  in  secret,  he  received 
him  as  he  had  twenty  years  earlier  received  his  brother, 
that  renegade  from  Orleanism,  as  Ollivier  was  from 
Republicanism.  It  was  the  same  interview — except 
that  the  Emperor,  ill,  anxious,  and  morose,  had  no 
longer  the  phlegmatic  audacity  of  former  days,  and 
Ollivier  had  nothing  of  Morny  but  his  self-assurance. 

Ollivier  left  Compiegne,  as  Morny  had  left  the 
filysee,  at  one  in  the  morning.  What  had  passed  during 
that  long  interview.?  The  walls  of  the  palace  alone 
could  tell,  and  i^ey  were  as  dumb  as  the  walls  of  the 
Elysee. 

What  was  not  a  mystery  for  any  one  was  that  after 
this  interview,  as  after  the  Elysee  interview,  Ollivier,  like 
Morny,  had  his  interviews,  great  and  small,  with  their 


2o8  MEMOIRS   OF 

Majesties.  Those  mysterious  meetings  ended,  the  one 
in  civil  war  and  the  massacre  of  the  Boulevard  Mont- 
martre;  the  other  in  foreign  war,  made  with  a  light 
heart,  and  the  invasion  of  France ! 

Such  was  one  of  the  last  mysteries  which  in  1869 
passed  under  the  eyes  of  the  police  in  the  forest  of 
Compiegne.  We  knew  of  others  equally  important 
the  consequences  of  which  were  as  fatal  to  France. 
The  last,  and  perhaps  the  most  important  in  its  im- 
mediate consequences,  was  brought  about  by  La 
Prussienne,  that  spy  of  Prussia  whom  I  have  already 
named.  The  harm  this  woman  did  to  the  Empire  and 
to  Napoleon  III  was,  I  repeat,  incalculable.  It  con- 
tributed largely,  when  their  Majesties  became  aware 
that  they  were  duped,  to  the  declaration  of  the  Prus- 
sian war. 

On  the  day  of  a  hunt  at  Compiegne  —  hunts  were 
numerous  in  the  forest,  and  were  made  the  pretext  of 
many  a  rendezvous  —  La  Prussienne  was  tete-a-tete 
with  the  Emperor,  whom  she  ruled,  no  longer  restrain- 
ing herself  in  what  she  said.  She  ridiculed  the  Empress, 
telling  him  of  her  bigotry,  which,  she  said,  expended 
itself  on  amulets;  of  her  mind  which  never  went  beyond 
frivolities  ;  of  her  qualities  which  were  neither  good  nor 
bad  but  absolutely  negative. 

Her  Majesty,  who  had  many  reasons  to  distrust  La 
Prussienne^  warned  by  her  own  spies,  arrived  in  the 
midst  of  this  interview  like  an  avenging  Diana.  What 
then  took  place,  my  agents  who  witnessed  the  scene 
scarcely  ventured  to  tell  me.    Suffice   it  to  say  that 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  209 

on   the   following   day  the    Empress  announced  her 
departure  for  Egypt. 

This  journey  to  the  East  was  undertaken,  said  the 
official  newspapers,  to  visit  the  Holy  Land,  and  accept 
the  amiable  invitations  of  the  Sultan  Abdul  Aziz  and 
of  the  Khedive  to  be  present  at  the  opening  of  the 
Suez  Canal  —  a  visit  that  gave  the  august  lady  much 
pleasure,  judging  by  her  letters  to  the  Emperor.  Her 
absence  lasted  till  Prussia  threw  off  the  mask  and  com- 
pelled the  Emperor  to  declare  war.  We  can  imagine 
with  what  satisfaction  the  Empress  welcomed  the  pro- 
clamation of  hostilities,  which  Emile  Ollivier  announced 
from  the  tribune  with  so  light  a  heart  in  presence  of  the 
representatives  of  the  nation. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE  FIRST  THUNDERCLAP  — TROPMANN 


THE  Coup  d'Etat  had,  in  one  night,  taken 
France  by  the  throat.  Two  thunderclaps 
preceded  her  deHverance  before  the  Empire 
disappeared  under  the  shame  of  Sedan  and  the  inva- 
sion. These  thunderclaps  were  the  crimes  of  Trop- 
mann  and  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte. 

At  the  beginning  of  these  memoirs,  when  speaking 
of  the  end  of  Louis-Philippe's  reign,  I  said  that  there 
are  fatal  hours  when,  for  individuals  as  for  nations,  all 
things  become  a  cause  of  decadence  and  cataclysm. 
That  hour  was  now  approaching  Napoleon  HI  pre- 
cisely as  it  had  come  to  the  king  whom  he  had  de- 
throned. 

The  Emperor  had  lost  his  Due  de  Morny  as  Louis- 
Philippe,  at  the  end  of  his  reign,  had  lost  the  Princess 
Amelie,  his  Egeria.  Lonely,  ill,  exhausted,  like  the 
old  king  against  whom  he  had  so  long  conspired,  the 
Emperor  found  himself  in  exactly  the  same  situation 
—  except  that  he,  far  more  guilty  than  Louis-Philippe, 
was  brought,  in  1869,  face  to  face  with  crimes  more 
shocking  and  terrible  than  that  of  the  Due  de  Praslin, 
odious  as  it  was. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  211 

Late  in  the  evening  of  September  19,  1869,  a  hack- 
ney-coach stopped  before  the  gate  of  Pantin  [a  village 
near  Paris  in  the  direction  of  Saint-Denis].  The  night 
was  dark,  the  wind  blew  hard,  and  thick  clouds  veiled 
the  face  of  the  moon.  The  coach,  after  stopping  a 
moment  at  the  gate  of  Pantin  as  though  the  driver 
were  undecided,  continued  its  way,  the  man  whipping 
up  his  horses  at  the  order  of  a  second  man,  who 
put  his  head  out  of  the  carriage-window  and  ordered 
him  to  drive  on. 

This  second  man  sat  on  the  back  seat  of  the  car- 
riage, opposite  to  a  lady  who  had  beside  her  two  young 
children.  Three  other  children  were  on  the  back  seat 
with  the  man.  The  carriage  proceeded  till  the  driver 
was  told  to  stop  in  a  road  bordered  on  one  side  by 
a  large  grass-field.  The  man  in  the  coach  got  out 
with  the  lady  and  the  two  younger  children.  He  told 
the  others  to  stay  where  they  were : 

*'  We  are  going,"  he  said,  "  to  meet  your  father,  and 
will  bring  him  back  with  us." 

So  saying,  he  pointed  to  a  high  white  wall  at  the 
farther  end  of  the  field  which  gleamed  now  and  then  in 
the  uncertain  rays  of  the  moon.  The  man  walked  first, 
the  lady,  carrying  the  youngest  child,  followed  him. 

The  driver,  to  pass  the  time,  got  down  from  his 
seat  and  stood  with  his  back  to  the  field,  talking  to 
the  three  children  left  in  the  coach.  He  asked  them, 
through  the  carriage-window,  why  they  were  travel- 
ling so  late. 

"We  don't  know,"  replied  the  eldest  of  the  three. 


212  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  Our  papa  has  sent  for  us,  and  his  friend  brought  us 
here  to  meet  him." 

It  was  cold ;  the  wind  whistled  noisily  about  them, 
drowning  all  other  sounds  except  the  barking  of  a  dog 
and  a  few  cries  from  the  direction  of  the  wall. 

About  twenty-five  minutes  had  elapsed  when  the 
man  returned.  He  told  the  three  children  to  get  out, 
and  said  imperatively  to  the  driver : 

"  You  can  go.    It  is  decided  that  we  stay  here." 

The  coach  was  turned  round  and  went  back  to 
Paris. 

The  next  morning  the  owner  of  the  field,  named 
Langlois,  saw,  on  walking  across  his  property,  a  sin- 
gular mound  that  he  had  not  seen  before.  He  dug 
into  it,  out  of  curiosity,  and  presently  recoiled  in  terror. 
Little  by  little,  he  uncovered  the  body  of  a  woman : 
then  the  bodies  of  five  children.  The  mother  had 
twenty-nine  wounds,  all  in  the  back,  two  in  the  loins. 
These  wounds,  and  those  on  the  children,  seemed  to 
have  been  made  with  a  pickaxe. 

But  by  the  contortions  of  these  bodies,  the  first 
witness  of  the  horrible  sight  declared,  even  before  the 
experts  confirmed  him,  that  life  was  not  extinct  when 
the  earth  was  thrown  upon  them.  They  had  been 
buried  alive! 

The  news  of  this  horrible  discovery  in  the  Lang- 
lois field  spread  rapidly.  It  burst  like  a  thunderbolt, 
spreading  stupefaction  and  horror  throughout  Paris. 
The  magistracy  was  at  once  informed,  and  immedi- 
ately I  was  ordered  to  attend  some  of  them  to  the 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  213 

scene  of  the  crime.  A  numerous  and  compact  crowd 
were  hurrying  from  all  parts  of  Paris ;  it  invaded  the 
Langlois  field  so  that  we  found  it  necessary  to  call 
out  a  large  police  force  to  control  the  over-excited 
populace,  already  too  much  stirred  up  by  political  ques- 
tions. The  first  care,  therefore,  of  the  magistracy  was 
to  satisfy  public  opinion ;  to  give  food  for  its  curiosity 
and  its  desires  for  vengeance. 

At  any  cost,  the  guilty  persons  must  be  discovered, 
a  full  explanation  must  be  given  of  the  crime,  or  the 
Opposition  journals,  to  please  the  excited  populace, 
would  not  fail  to  say  that  the  police  department  was 
so  absorbed  by  politics  that  it  had  no  agents  to  hold 
criminals  in  awe  and  to  answer  for  the  public  safety. 

I  went  to  work  at  once,  sending  at  the  same  time 
my  craftiest  sleuth-hounds  into  all  corners  of  Paris 
and  along  the  lines  of  all  the  railways.  I  thus  learned 
from  various  reports  that  a  very  young  man,  a  mech- 
anician, had  lately  lived,  up  to  the  evening  before  the 
murder,  at  the  Hotel  du  Chemin  de  fer  du  Nord,  but 
that  since  the  murder  he  had  not  returned  there. 

Another  report  informed  me  that  on  the  night  of 
the  murder  one  of  my  agents  had  noticed  a  hackney- 
coach  proceeding  towards  Pantin,  in  which  were  more 
persons  than  the  law  allowed ;  they  were  seven  in  all, 
—  five  children,  a  woman  about  forty  years  of  age,  and 
a  young  man  about  twenty.  When  my  agent  tried  to 
follow  and  stop  the  carriage,  because  the  driver  was 
cheating  his  company,  he  was  himself  stopped  short 
by  a  man  who  said  that  he  owed  him  money.   The 


214  MEMOIRS   OF 

time  it  took  my  inspector  to  convince  the  man  of  his 
error  made  him  lose  sight  of  the  carriage,  of  which  he 
had  not  had  time  to  take  the  number. 

The  inspector  then  contented  himself  by  waiting  on 
the  spot  where  the  carriage  had  passed  him,  reflecting 
that  the  driver,  being  at  the  extremity  of  Paris  at  such 
an  hour,  must  return  the  same  way  in  order  to  put  up 
his  coach  for  the  night  He  was  right ;  the  carriage 
came  back  empty,  but  the  driver  was  urging  his  horses 
so  that  they  passed  like  the  wind,  and  the  officer  was 
unable  either  to  stop  or  follow  them.  But  he  saw  that  the 
coach  belonged  to  the  Compagnie  des  Petites-Voitures. 

Thirdly,  a  photograph  found  on  the  body  of  the 
woman  was  the  portrait  of  a  man  who  resembled,  in 
all  respects,  the  description  given  me  of  the  young 
mechanician  who  had  lodged  at  the  Railway  Hotel. 
Moreover,  the  same  inspector  who  had  obtained  the 
description  of  him  at  the  hotel,  was  quite  certain  he 
had  seen  that  very  man  late  on  the  night  of  the  mur- 
der, in  the  rue  Grange-Bateliere,  coming  out,  in  com" 
pany  with  another  man,  from  a  tavern  kept  by  a  Mme. 

D ,  who  went  by  the  name  of  "  the  woman  in  spec* 

tacles." 

These  two  men  seemed  nervous:  they  wore  muf- 
flers; their  caps  were  pulled  over  their  eyes;  they 
were  dressed  as  if  for  a  long  journey ;  and  they  took 
the  direction  of  the  railroad  to  Havre.  As  all  the  other 
reports  coincided  with  this  one,  I  did  not  hesitate  to  go 
myself  to  Havre,  convinced  that  if  not  too  late,  I  was 
on  the  track  of  the  murderer. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  215 

Meantime  I  had  obtained  much  additional  informa- 
tion which  was  chiefly  as  follows  :  I  discovered  and 
questioned  the  driver  of  the  carriage,  who  declared 
that  about  half-past  ten  o'clock  that  Sunday  evening 
a  young  man  about  twenty  years  of  age  had  engaged 
him ;  the  young  man  was  accompanied  by  a  lady  and 
five  children.  The  driver's  description  of  this  young 
man  tallied  with  the  photograph  found  on  the  woman, 
and  also  with  the  description  given  of  the  young  mech- 
anician at  the  Railway  Hotel.  The  coachman  related 
to  me  how  the  murderer  had  made  the  mother  and  five 
children  leave  the  carriage,  declaring  that  he  himself 
had  no  suspicion  of  what  was  taking  place. 

Next:  the  young  man  had  registered  at  the  Rail- 
way Hotel  as  Jean  Kinck,  mechanician,  from  Roubaix. 
I  learned,  on  going  myself  to  the  hotel,  that  about  six 
o'clock  on  the  Sunday  evening,  a  lady  with  five  child- 
ren had  arrived  at  the  hotel  and  had  asked  for  Jean 
Kinck,  who  was  out.  She  went  away,  after  engaging 
two  rooms  and  leaving  a  basket.    She  did  not  return. 

I  discovered  by  questioning  all  the  people  of  the 
neighbourhood  that  about  the  same  hour  a  young  man 
bought,  in  the  shop  of  a  tool-maker,  a  pickaxe  and  a 
spade,  which  he  returned  and  took  away  at  eight  o'clock. 
According  to  the  information  given  by  the  coachman 
the  murders  must  have  been  done  about  eleven  o'clock 
that  night. 

I  had  no  sooner  reached  Havre  than  I  heard  of  an 
unexpected  arrest  made  by  a  gendarme  of  the  maritime 
department.    He   had   seen   in  a  tavern   in  the  rue 


2i6  MEMOIRS   OF 

Royale  a  group  of  strange-looking  individuals  and  he 
asked  for  their  names  and  papers.  One  of  them  (whose 
age  and  appearance  answered  to  those  of  the  young 
man  of  whom  I  was  in  search)  replied  that  he  was  a 
foreigner.  All  the  more  reason,  said  the  gendarme, 
that  he  should  show  his  papers.  On  his  refusal  to  do 
so,  the  gendarme  arrested  him,  saying  that  he  should 
take  him  to  the  police  court,  where  he  could  make  his 
explanation.    He  took  him  by  way  of  the  quay. 

The  young  man  took  advantage  of  the  passing  of 
a  carriage  to  wrench  himself  free  from  the  grasp  of  the 
gendarme.  He  rushed  to  the  edge  of  the  quay,  sprang 
upon  a  raft,  and  thence  into  the  water,  with  the  evi- 
dent intention  of  drowning  himself.  A  ship's  caulker, 
who  saw  the  act,  jumped  in  himself,  without  waiting  to 
remove  his  clothes,  and  brought  the  man  to  the  sur- 
face quite  exhausted.  When  placed  upon  the  quay  he 
was  unconscious,  and  they  carried  him  thence  to  the 
police  station,  where  an  apothecary  brought  him  to, 
after  which  he  was  taken  to  the  hospital. 

When  his  clothes  were  removed,  a  bundle  of  papers 
were  found  carefully  concealed  under  his  shirt.  These 
papers  appeared  to  show  that  he  was  no  other  than 
Jean  Kinck  of  Roubaix. 

As  soon  as  I  learned  these  details  from  the  magis- 
tracy  of  Havre,  to  whom  I  had  immediately  made 
myself  known,  I  asked  to  be  taken  to  the  hospital 
where  lay  the  man  whom  chance  had  thus  given  into 
my  hands  as  the  murderer  of  the  victims  at  Pantin. 
I  found  him  lying  in  a  bed,  guarded  by  two  police 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  217 

agents,  and  wrapped  in  a  white  woollen  counterpane, 
with  which  he  tried  to  conceal  his  features.  There 
was  no  doubt  that  he  answered  to  the  description  of 
the  man  I  was  in  search  of. 

I  had  not  come  a  moment  too  soon ;  for  on  further 
inquiry,  I  found  that  his  passage  had  been  taken  on 
a  ship  sailing  for  New  York  on  the  following  day.  On 
the  road  to  Havre  he  seemed  to  have  passed  under 
various  names,  such  as  Wolff,  Vander,  Gustave  Kinck, 
and  Jean  Kinck.  I  returned  to  the  hospital  at  eleven 
o'clock  fully  convinced  that  I  held  the  murderer.  The 
hospital  doctor  having  assured  me  he  could  safely  be 
removed  to  Paris,  I  took  him  to  the  railroad  and  placed 
him  in  a  reserved  first-class  carriage.  Having  passed 
a  comparatively  calm  night,  the  nervous  shock  which 
followed  his  immersion  in  the  water  had  passed  off, 
leaving  him  very  weak,  and  he  walked  with  difficulty, 
so  that  the  head  warder  of  the  prison  had  to  take  him 
by  the  arm  and  support  him.    He  was  not  handcuffed. 

During  the  journey  I  did  not  question  him ;  I  al- 
lowed him  to  keep  silence.  His  state  of  nervous  and 
feverish  irritation  showed  itself  in  abrupt,  impatient 
gestures.  When  we  reached  Paris,  about  four  in  the 
afternoon,  I  took  him  direct  to  the  Morgue,  where 
the  keeper,  the  judge,  and  the  physicians,  already  noti- 
fied by  me,  awaited  us.  The  six  bodies  found  in  the 
Langlois  field  were  then  in  the  purification-room,  be- 
hind the  exposition-room. 

I  took  the  man  I  supposed  to  be  Jean  Kinck  direct 
to  the  six  bodies  lying  on  marble  slabs.   The  examin- 


2i8  MEMOIRS   OF 

ing  judge,  who  expected  us,  said  to  him,  pointing  to  the 
victims : 

"  Do  you  recognize  those  persons  ?  " 

The  murderer  advanced  a  few  steps.  He  scratched 
his  ear  in  the  way  that  a  cat  does.  Shrugging  his 
shoulders,  he  turned  half-round,  and  said  with  great 
coolness  and  with  no  trembling  of  the  voice : 

"  Yes,  monsieur." 

Then,  pointing  with  his  forefinger  to  each  body  in 
succession,  he  added  : 

"  That  is  Mme.  Kinck ;  that  is  Emile ;  that  is  Henri ; 
that  is  Alfred ;  that  is  Achille ;  that  is  little  Marie." 

He  looked  at  them  without  even  uncovering  his 
head.  Those  present  were  horrified  by  such  an  exhi- 
bition of  cynicism. 

This  confronting  over,  I  and  the  murderer  (whom 
I  did  not  leave  a  moment),  with  the  assistant  chief  of 
police,  and  my  secretary,  S ,  went  into  the  council- 
room  to  sign  the  proces-verbaL  Here  the  prisoner,  in 
spite  of  his  cynicism,  seemed  to  make  a  strong  effort 
over  himself.  Recoiling  from  the  table  where  lay  the 
papers,  he  declared  that  he  had  been  only  the  instru- 
ment of  Jean  Kinck  and  his  eldest  son,  Gustave. 

"  I  helped,  it  is  true,"  he  said ;  "  I  pushed  them  into 
the  trench ;  but  I  did  not  strike,  —  I  only  held  them 
while  they  were  struck  by  Jean  and  Gustave  Kinck 
and  —  " 

He  muttered  a  third  name,  but  did  not  complete  it. 
He  lowered  his  head,  and  said  no  more.  The  judge, 
after  waiting  for  a  while,  said : 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  219 

"  Then  you  had  accomplices  ?  " 

"  Perhaps,"  he  replied,  without  raising  his  head.  Then 
he  added :  "  But  you  will  never  find  them.  I  am  enough 
for  you." 

Nothing  further  could  be  got  out  of  him.  I  then, 
with  my  secretary,  took  him  to  the  Mazas  Prison, 
having  the  greatest  difficulty  in  forcing  our  carriage 
through  the  surging  crowd,  already  dangerously  ex- 
cited. 

At  Mazas  the  murderer  gave  his  true  name  to  the 
director  of  the  prison.  It  was  Jean-Baptiste  Tropmann, 
age  nineteen,  born  at  Cernay,  on  the  upper  Rhine,  by 
profession  a  mechanician.  I  left  him  in  Mazas  with 
four  watchers  ordered  to  observe  his  every  movement. 

All  these  discoveries  only  cast  more  mystery  still 
over  the  ^horrible  catastrophe.  Where  was  the  father 
Kinck }  Where  was  the  son  Gustave  ?  The  curiosity 
and  impatience  of  the  public,  over-excited  by  the  hor- 
ror of  the  affair,  were  pushed  to  the  highest  pitch. 
How  could  it  be  otherwise.'*  Tropmann  was  arrested, 
but  justice  was  not  enlightened  as  to  the  real  truth  of 
the  horrible  affair ;  and  it  could  not  be  until  Jean  and 
Gustave  Kinck  were  found,  dead  or  alive ! 

Once  more  chance,  or  Providence,  took  part  in  this 
memorable  case.  On  the  26th  of  September  a  man 
named  Hughs,  a  butcher,  discovered  at  one  side  of  the 
Langlois  field  another  trench,  older  in  date  than  that 
dug  for  Mme.  Kinck  and  her  children.  In  it  was  the 
body  of  a  man  with  several  wounds  in  his  breast.  The 
head,  with  much  of  the  hair  torn  off,  showed  a  long 


220  MEMOIRS   OF 

struggle  with  his  adversary.  Not  far  from  the  trench 
a  hatchet  was  found,  lightly  covered  with  earth ;  also 
some  handfuls  of  brown  hair  the  color  of  Tropmann's 
hair.  No  doubt  remained :  Tropmann  was  not  the  mere 
assistant  in  the  murder  of  the  Kinck  family,  he  was 
the  principal  murderer  himself. 

When  the  face  of  the  victim,  covered  with  coagu- 
lated blood,  was  washed,  it  was  seen  to  be  that  of  a 
young  man  with  round,  beardless  cheeks  and  chest- 
nut hair.  A  scar  under  the  right  ear  was  recognized 
by  two  inhabitants  of  Roubaix  as  a  well-known  mark 
on  Gustave  Kinck,  the  eldest  son.  It  was  evident  that 
he  was  a  victim,  not  a  murderer,  and  that  his  slayer 
was  the  man  who  accused  him  —  Tropmann. 

This  discovery  was  scarcely  made  before  all  Paris 
rushed  to  the  Langlois  field.  More  than  six  hundred 
thousand  persons  passed,  from  first  to  last,  up  the  rue 
Lafayette  on  this  dismal  pilgrimage.  When  the  com- 
missaries of  police  reached  the  place  to  transfer  the 
body  to  the  Morgue,  the  railway  station  was  so  jammed 
that  they  had  to  shut  the  iron  wickets  to  prevent  the 
people  from  passing  in  or  out.  The  body  was  placed 
in  a  cart  and  covered  with  straw,  and  escorted  by 
a  squadron  of  gendarmes  on  horseback.  But  even  so, 
my  agents  had  great  difficulty  in  getting  through 
the  crowd,  which  demanded  with  odious  cries  to  see  the 
victim. 

Meantime  I  went  to  Mazas  with  a  street-coach  to 
take  Tropmann  to  the  Morgue  —  though  without  tell- 
ing him  where  we  were  going.    I  hoped,  by  putting 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  221 

him  suddenly  face  to  face  with  his  seventh  victim, 
to  shake  his  coolness  and  get  the  better  of  his  self- 
possession. 

We  reached  the  great  hall  where  the  doctors  and 
the  judge  awaited  us.  I  placed  Tropmann  instantly 
before  the  body.    He  gave  a  cry  of  horror,  exclaiming : 

"  Ah  !  le  malheureux  !  "  [the  unfortunate  fellow !] 

Then,  to  disguise  the  painful  impression  caused  by 
this  unexpected  sight,  which  destroyed  his  system  of 
defence,  he  passed  his  handkerchief  over  his  eyes  and 
thus  concealed  his  face. 

The  judge  said  imperatively : 

"  Put  down  that  handkerchief  —  you  are  not  weep- 
ing —  and  look ! " 

The  wretch  then  crossed  his  arms  on  his  chest,  and 
without  removing  his  cap  he  fixed  his  eyes  on  the 
mutilated  body. 

"  Do  you  recognize  this  corpse  t "  asked  the  judge. 

"  Yes,"  he  said  in  a  curt  voice ;  "  yes,  that  is  Gus- 
tave." 

"  Whom  you  murdered }  "  said  the  judge  quickly. 

"  Oh  no !  "  cried  Tropmann ;  "  his  father  did  it." 

"  But  you  said,"  replied  the  judge,  "  that  the  son 
with  the  father  committed  these  murders.  How,  then, 
can  the  murderer  be  murdered } " 

"  Because  the  father,  probably,  killed  him  that  he 
might  not  some  day  confess  this  abominable  crime." 

"  That  is  false,"  said  the  judge.  "  You  are  imposing 
on  us  to  keep  up  your  line  of  defence.  But  you  now 
know  that  we  cannot  believe  what  you  say." 


222  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  Oh ! "  exclaimed  Tropmann,  not  answering  the 
judge,  and  speaking  as  if  to  himself,  "  I  wish  I  were 
in  his  place." 

"  Whose  place  ? "  asked  the  judge. 

Tropmann  kept  silence,  and  the  judge  said : 

"  Speak." 

Tropmann  made  no  reply ;  his  obstinate  silence  cut 
short  the  investigation.  In  spite  of  the  unexpected 
shock  which  his  soul  must  have  felt  at  the  sight  of 
that  seventh  dead  body,  his  face,  during  this  second 
confronting  (which  lasted  about  twenty-five  minutes), 
betrayed  no  emotion.  I  watched  him  with  the  closest 
attention,  and  I  observed,  however,  that  there  was  less 
cynicism  in  his  manner  than  on  the  former  occasion. 
He  was  quite  as  calm,  but  more  thoughtful.  He  evi- 
dently understood  that  the  discovery  of  this  seventh 
body  weakened  his  plan  of  defence.  As  I  took  him 
back  to  Mazas,  Tropmann  did  not  say  a  single  word 
to  me. 

After  the  discovery  of  Gustave  Kinck's  body  labour- 
ers were  set  to  work  to  dig  over  the  whole  of  that  fatal 
field,  in  the  expectation  that  Jean  Kinck's  body  was 
also  there.    In  vain  ;  nothing  further  was  found. 

It  now  became  imperative  to  find  Jean  Kinck,  dead 
or  alive.  As  for  me,  whose  active  career  had  been 
signalized  by  very  many  delicate  and  difficult  arrests 
of  great  criminals,  I  found  myself,  at  sixty-five  years  of 
age,  confronted  by  an  assassin  whose  crimes  went  far 
beyond  any  I  had  hitherto  come  in  contact  with.  The 
means  that  I  now  took  to  discover  traces  of  Trop- 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  223 

mann's  eighth  victim   came   more  from  my  instinct 
than  my  reason. 

I  asked  myself  why  Tropmann  had  lodged  for  a 
month  close  to  the  station  of  the  Eastern  Railroad; 
and  why  he  took  his  meals  in  a  house  serving  as  a 
centre  for  Germans,  Alsatians,  and  other  foreigners, 
whose  differences  were  often  settled  by  knives.  Ever 
since  the  Jud  affair,  I  knew  from  what  quarter  blew 
the  wind  of  assassination.  Instinctively,  after  studying 
the  papers  found  on  Tropmann  when  dragged  from 
the  water  at  Havre,  my  eyes  turned  towards  his  native 
country.  Everything  told  me  that  the  body  of  Jean 
Kinck  might  be  in  Alsace,  and  that  we  had  discov- 
ered the  finale  of  the  crimes  before  discovering  their 
beo^inning:.  The  result  showed  that  I  was  not  mistaken. 

Tropmann  could  not  have  been  alone  in  the  com- 
mission of  these  murders ;  the  time,  the  circumstances, 
his  physical  strength,  all  forbade  it.  He  might  have 
been,  like  Jud,  mixed  up,  perhaps  unconsciously,  in 
grave  events  which  blindly  controlled  him.  These 
crimes,  which  might  have  had  cupidity  for  their  motive 
in  the  first  instance,  might  also  have  been  connected,  by 
some  mysterious  affiliation,  with  causes  of  a  different 
and  far  more  important  order  than  mere  love  of  gain. 
That  political  causes  were  concerned  in  these  murders 
is  my  firm  conviction.  The  arm  that  struck  the  Kinck 
family  —  shortly  before  the  invasion  —  may  have  been 
that  of  a  common  murderer,  covetous  and  cruel,  but 
its  victims  were  also  the  victims  of  the  already  strained 
and  critical  situation  of  France. 


224  MEMOIRS    OF 

The  details  ignored  at  the  trial  of  this  celebrated 
case,  the  points  left  obscure,  though  pointed  out  to 
me  by  Tropmann  before  he  died,  permit  me  no  doubt 
on  this  subject.  Tropmann  will  ever  remain  as  mys- 
terious a  personage  as  Jud,  whose  very  existence  has 
been  denied. 

No  one,  at  first  sight,  could  have  discovered  on  Trop- 
mann's  features  the  secret  propensities  of  his  soul.  This 
young  lad  of  nineteen  had  the  gentle  face  of  a  young 
girl  or  a  divinity  student.  He  seemed  delicate ;  his 
general  structure  was  lax  and  effeminate.  But  in  spite 
of  his  apparent  delicacy  he  possessed  a  marvellous 
agility  and  a  latent  muscular  strength  which  must 
have  been  a  powerful  help  in  the  execution  of  his 
crimes.  He  had  a  broad,  open  forehead,  slightly  re- 
treating at  the  top  like  that  of  wild  animals.  His 
chestnut  hair,  soft  and  abundant,  was  the  object  of  his 
particular  care.  The  good  effect  of  the  upper  part  of 
his  face  was  cancelled  by  his  large,  flat  ears,  his  nar- 
row, curving  nose,  like  the  beak  of  a  bird  of  prey ;  by 
his  mouth,  with  its  thick  upper  lip  that  a  budding 
moustache  did  not  hide,  and  by  his  huge  teeth.  These 
things  gave  to  the  low^er  part  of  his  face,  so  gentle  in 
the  upper  part,  a  savage  expression,  recalling  that  of  a 
bulldog.  His  hazy  eyes  never  brightened,  except  under 
the  touch  of  a  strong  impression;  then  he  raised  his 
eyelids,  which  he  usually  kept  lowered,  and  his  glance 
became  keen,  very  brilliant,  but  crafty. 

When  he  felt  pressed,  before  his  judges,  by  argu- 
ments that  proved  he  was  lying,  he  made  his  habitual 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  225 

cat-like  gesture  of  passing  his  hand  above  his  ear.  But, 
like  all  murderers  whom  I  have  known,  it  was  by  his 
hands  that  the  nature  of  this  monster  was  fully  re- 
vealed. Although  so  young,  his  hand  was  dry  and 
wrinkled.  It  was  a  large,  strong,  fleshless  hand,  the 
thumb  of  which  reached  to  the  upper  joint  of  the 
fingers.  The  wide  separation  between  the  thumb  and 
the  forefinger  gave  to  that  unnatural,  wicked  hand  the 
look  of  a  vulture's  talon.  When  in  the  prisoner's  dock 
he  grasped  the  balustrade  with  the  long,  bony  fingers 
of  that  hideous  and  repulsive  hand,  the  favourable  im- 
pression given  by  his  gentle  countenance  was  effaced ; 
one  could  think  only  of  an  octopus  or  some  other  foul 
and  ferocious  beast. 

I  now  set  all  my  batteries  in  motion,  —  upon  Havre, 
upon  Alsace,  and  to  the  east,  west,  and  north  of  France, 
while  my  assistant  chief  of  police  never  quitted  the 
scene  of  the  murders,  exploring,  with  his  agents,  its 
neighbourhood,  especially  the  German  quarter,  where, 
in  my  opinion,  Tropmann  had  auxiliaries  if  not  accom- 
plices. 

I  sent  my  secretary,  S ,  to  Roubaix  (place  of 

residence  of  the  Kinck  family),  thence  to  Cernay  in 
Alsace,  Tropmann's  native  place,  to  find  Jean  Kinck, 
who  (probably  killed  before  his  family,  and  missing  in 
Paris)  might  be  found  in  his  own  region.    A  letter 

found  in  the  Kinck  house  at  Roubaix  put  S on 

the  right  track  of  Tropmann's  last,  or  rather  first,  victim. 

This  letter  showed  that  Jean  Kinck,  one  month 
before  the  murder  of  his  family,  had  arranged  to  go  to 


226  MEMOIRS   OF 

Alsace  with  his  compatriot,  J.  B.  Tropmann,  and  there 
found,  at  Guebviller  (Kinck's  birthplace),  a  manufac- 
turing business.  In  another  letter,  of  later  date,  Jean 
Kinck  directed  his  wife  and  children  to  leave  Roubaix 
and  come  with  Tropmann  to  meet  him,  as  soon  as 
their  "  business  "  should  be  completed.  Thus  he  gave 
the  itinerary  of  his  murderer.  This  letter  threw  a 
strong  light  on  the  latter's  actions.  It  was  clear  that 
Tropmann,  returning  to  Paris  and  leaving  Jean  Kinck 
in  Alsace,  had  done  to  him  in  his  native  country  what 
he  went  to  Paris  to  do  to  the  rest  of  the  family.  The 
essential  thing  now  was  to  find  Jean  Kinck,  who 
Tropmann  still  insisted  was  the  slayer  of  his  wife  and 
children. 

While  I  sent  my  secretary,  S ,  to  Alsace,  to  dis- 
cover if  possible  the  body  of  the  eighth  victim,  which, 
judging  by  the  letters  found  at  Roubaix,  ought  to  be 
lying  somewhere  between  Bollwiller  and  Cernay,  I 
scarcely  left  Tropmann  alone  in  his  cell  at  Mazas. 
I  pressed  him  with  questions  based  on  those  letters, 
and  on  certain  other  information  derived  from  an  Alsa- 
tian agent  under  the  orders  of  my  secretary.  I  knew 
from  him  that  Tropmann  and  Kinck  had  been  seen 
drinking  together  in  a  tavern  at  Bollwiller,  and  that 
from  that  moment  no  further  news  of  Kinck  could  be 
obtained.  Guiding  myself  by  this  information,  I  ques- 
tioned Tropmann,  who  replied : 

"  You  want  to  know  what  we  did  after  we  left  Boll- 
willer. Well,  we  went  and  took  a  lodging  in  the  castle 
of  Wattviller  near  Cernay." 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  227 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  that  castle,  like  all  the  other  castles 
in  Alsace,  is  an  uninhabitable  ruin." 

"  What  does  that  matter,"  he  replied,  "  if  there  are 
cellars  ?  " 

"  What  could  you  do  in  cellars  ? " 

"  Coin  money.  That  was  the  business,  the  mine  of 
gold,  from  which  we  were  to  draw  the  thousand-franc 
notes  to  cure  my  poverty  and  that  of  my  family,  and 
enrich  Kinck.  But  Kinck  had  scruples.  He  wanted 
to  get  rich  in  another  way  —  and  that  is  what  killed 
him." 

"  You  are  fooling  me,"  I  replied,  "  with  such  stories. 
You  have  read  all  that  in  some  novel." 

"  I  am  telling  you  the  truth.  Monsieur  Claude." 

After  that,  I  could  get  nothing  more  out  of  him. 

Some  days  later,  I  received  from  S and  the 

Alsatian  agent,  who  knew  the  country  well,  a  pair  of 
trousers  spotted  with  blood  which  they  had  found 
near  the  pond  of  Obwiller.  I  sent  orders  at  once  to 
search  the  pond,  and  I  told  Tropmann,  intentionally, 
of  what  was  being  done. 

"  All  nonsense  !  "  he  said.  "  They  will  find  nothing 
in  that  pond.  It  is  not  there  they  ought  to  look.  If 
you  don't  know  how  to  send  your  agents  to  the  place 
where  Kinck  was  killed,  take  me  to  Alsace  and  I  '11 
lead  you  to  the  right  spot." 

I  answered  that  it  was  not  in  my  power  to  do  that 
till  the  body  was  found,  when,  of  course,  he  would  be 
taken  there  to  be  confronted  with  it.  I  said  this  to 
encourage  his  desire  which  he  had  several  times  ex- 


228  MEMOIRS    OF 

pressed,  doubtless  believing  that,  once  in  Alsace,  he 
would  be  rescued  or  aided  to  escape  by  the  ijzvisible 
hands  that  had  pushed  him  on  to  do  murder. 

At  last  I  received  the  following  dispatch  from  Stras- 
burg: 

"  Kinck,  father,  found  near  the  castle  of  Herren- 
fluch,  in  the  forest  of  Uffholtz,  Upper  Rhine." 

At  the  same  time,  I  received  from  the  authorities  of 
Belfort  a  dispatch,  dated  Cernay,  as  follows  : 

"Corpse  Kinck,  father,  found  at  1.30,  near  the  edge 
of  the  forest  adjoining  the  fields  of  M.  Aime  Gros, 
in  the  judicial  district  of  Belfort,  commune  of  Watt- 
viller,  near  the  ruins  of  the  castle.  Body  in  putre- 
faction. Unrecognizable ;  but  socks  knitted  of  same 
wool  as  those  of  Kinck  children.  Linen  marked  Jean 
Kinck." 

This  time  Tropmann  had  not  lied.  Nevertheless 
chance  alone  had  led  to  the  discovery  of  the  body 
at  the  moment  when  I  was  beginning  to  despair  of 
ever  finding  it.  My  explorers  were  guided  by  a  man 
named  Heguette,  of  Wattviller.  He,  seeing  a  quantity 
of  crows  collected  on  one  spot,  suspected  that  there 
might  be  something  there  to  attract  them.  The  party 
advanced  to  the  spot  near  the  old  castle  and  discov- 
ered the  body ! 

On  receipt  of  this  news  from  my  secretary,  I  has* 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  229 

tened  to  inform  the  Prefect  of  Police  and  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior.  To  my  great  surprise,  I  did  not  re- 
ceive until  the  following  day  an  answer,  which  may  be 
rendered  thus : 

"  Hasten  nothing ;  let  things  take  their  course." 

It  was  exactly  the  same  as  in  the  Jud  affair!  I  was 
ordered  to  be  inactive  at  the  moment  when  the  action 
of  the  law  ought  to  have  been  quickest  to  discover 
the  whole  truth  !  Once  more  I  understood  that  in  the 
Tropmann  affair  as  in  the  Jud  affair  there  was  some- 
thing other  than  the  double  question  of  robbery  and 
murder. 

Before  entering  upon  the  last  phases  of  this  cele- 
brated case  —  the  trial  of  which  was  so  managed  as  to 
make  Tropmann  alone  responsible  for  the  crimes  — 
w^e  must  examine  the  political  situation  of  Alsace  in 
1868.  At  this  period  all  that  part  of  the  Vosges  which 
lies  between  Mulhausen  and  Switzerland  was  in  the 
grasp  of  a  dumb  terror ;  it  no  longer  possessed  itself. 
The  condition  of  this  part  of  France  was  intolerable 
for  the  notables  of  the  region.  They  had  met  it  by 
isolating  themselves  from  the  population,  kept  in  a  state 
of  ferment  by  the  agents  of  the  German  Protestant 
party. 

Most  of  the  old  castles  in  the  valleys  of  the  Vosges 
had  become  the  rendezvous  of  Field-Marshal  Moltke's 
officers.  Concealed  in  the  ruined  tow^ers  —  last  remains 
of  secular  disasters  —  they  studied  the  topography  of 


230  MEMOIRS   OF 

a  territory  they  were  resolved  to  reconquer  at  any  cost. 
The  apprehensions  that  these  mysterious  incursions 
spread  through  the  region  were  skilfully  made  use  of 
by  criminals.  German  spies  lurked  like  owls  in  the 
pine  forests,  protected  by  the  old  ruined  castles,  in  the 
towers  of  which  they  established  their  headquarters; 
and  criminals,  smugglers,  and  counterfeiters,  lurking 
in  the  cellars  of  those  very  castles,  were  not  afraid 
of  the  Germans  —  they  felt  sure,  if  not  of  protec- 
tion, at  least  of  tolerance  from  the  enemies  of  their 
country. 

In  1869,  our  stealthy  neighbours  had  entangled  in 
the  meshes  of  their  diplomacy  all  the  inhabitants  of 
Alsace, — as  I  had  found  to  my  cost,  nine  years  earlier, 
when  I  went  from  Mulhausen  to  Ferrette  on  the  track 
of  another  murderer.  Well,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  the  same  policy  that  hindered  the  search  for  truth 
when  I  returned  from  that  mission  now  suspended, 
in  the  Tropmann  case,  the  necessary  judicial  investi- 
gations, which  were  not  allowed  to  go  beyond  the 
discovery  of  Jean  Kinck's  body. 

When  Tropmann  learned  of  that  discovery,  which 
the  judge  made  known  to  him,  hoping  to  induce  him 
to  confess,  the  murderer,  by  nature  very  dissimulating 
and  very  deliberate,  shut  himself  up  in  fresh  reserve 
against  the  magistracy.  He  said  absolutely  nothing 
more  to  them.  But  some  days  later,  deciding  to  try 
every  chance  to  make  the  authorities  send  him  to 
Alsace,  where  he  hoped  to  gain  his  liberty,  he  wrote 
me  the  following  note : 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  231 

Monsieur  Claude,  —  I  beg  you  to  come  to  my  cell 
as  soon  as  possible.  I  have  very  serious  revelations 
to  make  you.     I  salute  you. 

J,  B.  Tropmann. 

After  taking  the  opinion  of  the  examining  judge 
from  whom  I  received  the  advice  to  give  little  credit 
to  the  prisoner's  confidences,  I  went  to  see  the  latter. 
Evidently  it  was  feared  in  high  places  that  he  would 
say  too  much.  I  divined  that  thought  in  the  judge's 
mind ;  nevertheless  I  was  prepared  to  profit  by  what 
Tropmann  might  say,  for  he  had  certainly  of  late  been 
in  a  vein  of  truthfulness. 

As  soon  as  he  saw  me  he  received  me  with  an  eager- 
ness that  contrasted  with  his  usual  taciturnity.  After 
sending  away  the  gaolers,  I  told  him  I  was  ready  to 
receive  his  serious  revelations. 

"  Monsieur  Claude,"  he  said,  "  since  the  discovery 
of  Kinck,  fere,  I  have  nothing  more  to  conceal.  To 
deserve  the  indulgence  of  the  law,  I  have  only  to  tell 
the  truth.  Well,  you  know  already,  do  you  not,  that 
it  was  I  who  killed  Jean  Kinck,  and  that  it  was  I  who 
buried  him  ?  " 

"You  cannot  deny  the  crime,"  I  answered,  "inas- 
much as  you  gave  us  indications  as  to  where  the  body 
would  be  found." 

"  Do  you  know  how  he  died  'I " 

"  Yes,  by  prussic  acid." 

"  Do  you  know  how  I  procured  it  ? " 

"  No,"  I  said. 


232  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  By  electro-chemical  means,  which  are  very  valuable 
in  the  coining  of  counterfeit  money.  There  is  a  sys- 
tem of  electro-silvering  and  gilding,  in  which  cyanide 
of  potassium  is  used.  In  using  this  system  for  our 
monetary  work,  I  became  familiar  with  that  poison; 
and  from  that  to  prussic  acid  you  know  there  is  but 
a  step." 

"  Why,"  I  asked  "  inasmuch  as  M.  Kinck,  accordmg 
to  you,  consented  to  become  your  accomplice  at  the 
Wattviller  castle,  why  did  you  kill  him  as  soon  as  he 
became  a  useful  associate  ? " 

"  Because  M.  Kinck,  whose  honesty  was  perpetually 
at  war  with  his  avarice,  refused,  at  the  last  moment,  to 
be  our  associate." 

"  And  yet, "  I  objected,  "  did  he  not  write  to  his  wife 
that  he  was  certain  of  making  with  you  over  a  mil- 
lion?" 

"Yes,  but  by  other  means  than  that  of  coining." 

"  Do  you  know  that  means  ?'' 

"  It  was  because  I  did  know  it  that  I  killed  him." 

"What  was  it?" 

"  Chance  gave  it  to  him  one  day  when  he  was  in  the 
ruins  of  the  old  castle  where  we  were  to  make  our 
workshop  for  counterfeiting." 

"  You  puzzle  me,"  I  said. 

"  Well,"  replied  Tropmann,  smiling,  "  I  shan't  puzzle 
you  any  longer.  Kinck  told  me  that  he  had  overheard, 
the  previous  night,  a  party  of  strangers  talking  with 
great  eagerness  in  one  of  the  towers  of  the  old  castle. 
They  were  talking  German,  and  what  Kinck  heard 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  233 

was  neither  more  nor  less  than  projects  of  war  against 
France.  They  were  to  bring  about  a  certain  victory 
for  Germany  and  the  partition  of  Alsace.  Kinck  then 
said  to  me  :  '  You  understand,  my  dear  Tropmann,  that 
I  have  no  need  now  to  go  on  with  you  in  a  business  that 
is  repugnant  to  my  honesty.  I  possess  a  state  secret 
which  will  give  me  a  million.  I  have  noted  down  word 
for  word  in  my  pocket-book  the  conversation  of  those 
future  conquerors.  By  warning  the  Emperor  of  what 
I  know,  of  what  I  have  noted  down,  I  am  certain  of 
a  million.  As  you  wished  to  associate  me  in  your  gains, 
so  will  I  out  of  gratitude  associate  you  in  mine.' " 

"  All  that  is  not  serious,"  I  said,  interrupting  him, 
"  any  more  than  your  tale  of  false  coinage,  which  you 
invented  to  blacken  the  memory  of  your  benefactor.  But 
even  admitting  your  version,  the  facts  disprove  it.  How 
can  any  one  believe  that  you  killed  a  man  because  he 
told  you  his  plans  and  promised  you  a  share  in  the 
profits.?" 

"  It  becomes  believable,"  he  answered,  "  when  I  tell 
you  that  I  met  an  old  man  in  the  forest  who  told  me 
he  had  overheard  our  conversation,  adding,  *  the  secret 
that  man  knows  must  die  with  him.*  " 

"  Then  it  was  not  merely  to  obtain  Kinck's  million 
that  you  killed  him  ?  " 

"  No,  monsieur." 

"  But,"  I  added,  "  you  had  no  such  reason  for  exter- 
minating the  whole  family  at  Pantin." 

"  That  family  was  informed  of  the  secret  by  Kinck, 
and  therefore  it  had  to  die." 


234  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  And  so,  according  to  you,"  I  said,  in  a  tone  of  ban- 
tering pity,  "you  acted  in  behalf  of  a  foreign  policy?  " 

."  Oh  no !  not  I,"  cried  Tropmann,  "  but  my  accom- 
plices." 

"  Name  them  so  that  I  may  give  some  credence  to 
your  fables." 

"  No,  I  cannot  —  no,  I  must  not !  "  cried  Tropmann, 
with  extraordinary  animation.  "  Take  me  to  Bollviller 
where  Kinck  hid  his  pocket-book,  and  you  will  know 
all." 

"  You  know  very  well,"  I  said,  "  that  I  have  not  the 
power  to  do  so;  tell  me  only  the  place  where  Kinck 
hid  that  pocket-book  —  you  have  already  indicated 
where  his  body  could  be  found." 

"  Nonsense !  "  cried  Tropmann,  laughing  noisily ; 
"  you  held  out  that  hope  to  me  before ;  I  shall  not  be 
such  a  fool  as  to  be  caught  twice.  It  is  I  who  must 
conduct  you  to  the  place  where  that  pocket-book  is 
hidden,  or  you  shall  know  nothing  —  nothing  —  no- 
thing ! " 

He  said  those  three  words  in  a  tone  of  determina- 
tion. 

To  pique  this  German,  whose  obstinacy  seemed  about 
to  stop  his  confidences,  I  answered  : 

"  You  will  say  nothing  because  you  have  nothing  to 
say.  Your  coining  of  false  money,  your  state  secret, 
your  pocket-book,  are  so  many  fabrications  to  gain 
time  and  get  yourself  taken  to  Alsace  where  you 
expect  to  escape." 

"And  if  I  do  nurse  that  hope,"  said  Tropmann,  with 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  235 

a  jeering  air,  "  I  must  have  accomplices  —  accomplices 
whom  you  deny.  If  your  judges  are  such  fools  as  to 
suppose  I  have  the  superhuman  strength  to  handle  a 
pickaxe,  a  spade,  a  knife,  a  hatchet,  and  kill  six  persons 
and  bury  the  bodies  without  assistance,  they  are  not 
fools  enough  to  think  I  could  escape,  like  an  eel,  from 
your  gendarmes  without  the  help  of  associates.  If  I 
have  associates,  you  w^ill  admit  they  are  not  saints; 
they  may  be  counterfeiters  —  or  they  may  be  spies 
such  as  you  set  to  watch  me  here." 

I  felt  I  was  beaten  by  his  logic,  but  all  the  same, 
I  saw  his  object :  to  get  away  from  Paris  and  work  at 
his  liberty  in  Alsace.  I  answered : 

"  You  do  very  wrong  to  tarnish  the  reputation  of  an 
honest  man  like  M.  Kinck." 

"  Let  me  alone ! "  he  exclaimed,  shaking  his  shoul- 
ders. "  If  Kinck  had  been  as  scrupulous  as  you  make 
him  out,  would  he  have  gone  with  me  to  Alsace? 
Would  he  have  taken  a  circuitous  way  to  get  there? 
Would  he  have  let  himself  be  taken  mysteriously  to 
the  depths  of  the  forest,  to  the  ruins  of  an  old  castle, 
where  men  find  —  by  spying,  counterfeiting,  smug- 
gling—  an  easy  way  to  fortune — when  they  don't  find 
death?" 

"  You  are  a  clever  man,  Tropmann,"  I  said,  watch- 
ing him ;  "  you  have  the  art  of  putting  things  together 
which  serves  you  well  to  shuffle  on  to  others  that  which 
weighs  upon  you  alone." 

"You  say  that,  Monsieur  Claude,"  said  the  astute 
Alsatian,  "because  you  have  no  reply  to  make  to  me. 


236  MEMOIRS   OF 

I  have  not  your  education,  nor  your  mind,  nor  your  ex- 
perience. If  I  am  clever,  as  you  say,  it  is  because  I  am 
telling  you  the  truth  about  my  crimes  —  yes,  my  crimes. 
You  see  that  I  do  not  any  longer  deny  them.  You  know 
very  well  that  if  the  Kinck  family  had  not  voluntarily 
associated  itself  in  my  projects  —  I  mean  the  scheme 
of  which  I  told  you —  I  could  not  have  been  their  friend. 
Would  Mme.  Kinck,  who  did  not  Hke  me,  have  told 
her  neighbours  before  starting  for  Paris,  that  she  was 
very  happy  because  her  husband  was  about  to  make 
a  million  }  Would  she  have  gone  with  me  and  taken  her 
whole  family  by  night  to  a  lonely  place  unless  for  some 
mysterious  affair  for  which  no  precautions  were  too 
great  t  All  that  is  plain  as  day ;  and  so  are  the  associ- 
ates I  must  have  had  at  Pantin  and  elsewhere.  You 
have  but  to  will  to  know  them !  Take  me  to  Alsace. 
Everything  is  contained  in  Kinck's  pocket-book.  It  will 
be  seen  that  without  my  accomplices  —  the  instruments 
of  an  affair  which  did  not  concern  me —  I  should  not 
have  killed  a  family  which  was,  in  fact,  my  milch  cow. 
Now  I  have  said  all.  If  you  do  not  believe  me,  so  much 
the  worse  for  you.  If  they  do  not  take  me  to  Alsace 
to  prove  the  truth  of  what  I  say,  it  is  because  they  want 
not  to  know  the  truth, ^' 

I  report  this  conversation  verbatim.  I  give  it  for 
what  it  may  be  worth.  If  it  is  absurd,  its  absurdity  is 
not  without  logic.  It  is  not  more  inexplicable  than 
the  mysterious  journey  of  Kinck  and  Tropmann  into 
Alsace,  or  the  rendezvous  in  Paris  at  night  with  Mme. 
Kinck  and  her  children  to  which  she  readily  consented. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  237 

To  fathom  these  apparent  absurdities  we  need  the  key 
to  the  mysteries  that  enfold,  and  always  will  enfold,  the 
incomprehensible  actions  of  the  victims  and  their  mur- 
derer. Tropmann  was  not  such  a  fool  as  to  expect  that 
he  could  by  his  butchery  obtain  the  money  of  the 
Kincks ;  why  then  destroy  at  one  blow  a  family  which 
was  to  him  the  layer  of  golden  eggs? 

Reflecting  on  the  statements  made  to  me  by  Trop- 
mann, and  remembering  my  former  adventure  in  the 
Vosges,  an  adventure  as  unlikely  as  the  assertions  of 
this  criminal,  I  ended  by  believing  that  he  might  have 
told  me  the  truth. 

This  opinion  was  confirmed  by  the  attitude  taken  by 
my  chiefs  when  I  reported  to  them,  word  for  word,  the 
conversation  I  had  had  with  this  monster.  I  was  en- 
joined to  say  nothing  about  his  "absurd  statements,"  to 
keep  them  to  myself,  and  to  take  out  of  \ny proces-ver- 
baux  all  that  related  to  politics  and  to  the  "  pretended 
accomplices"  of  Tropmann. 

On  the  28th  of  December,  1869,  Tropmann  was 
arraigned  before  the  court  of  assizes  of  the  Seine.  [It 
is  not  necessary  to  give  the  details  of  the  trial  which 
was  so  conducted  as  to  set  aside  all  evidence  tending  to 
show  that  Tropmann  had  accomplices.  The  gist  of  the 
defence  offered  by  his  counsel,  the  celebrated  Maitre 
Lachaud,  was  as  follows.  After  recalling  the  points  left 
obscure  by  the  prosecution,  and  dwelling  on  the  fact 
that  no  profit  from  his  holocaust  could  have  accrued  to 
the  murderer,  Maitre  Lachaud  said :] 

"Let  us  now  come  to  the  question  of  accomplices. 


238  MEMOIRS   OF 

The  murder  of  the  father  might  have  been  committed 
alone ;  the  murder  of  Gustave  might  have  been  com- 
mitted alone ;  but  the  killing  of  the  rest  of  the  family 
could  not  have  been  committed  alone.  It  is  impossible. 
I  should  say  so  even  if  I  had  no  witnesses  —  but  I  have 
them;  even  if  no  one  had  seen  those  accomplices — but 
they  were  seen. 

"  What  says  the  prosecution  ?  Here  we  must  examine 
closely.  The  prosecution  says  that  Tropmann  bought 
the  spade  and  pickaxe  at  five  o'clock ;  that  he  returned 
and  took  them  away  at  eight  o'clock;  that  he  then  took 
the  omnibus  to  Pantin,  dug  the  trench,  returned  to 
Paris,  went  to  the  Railway  Hotel,  found  the  Kinck 
family,  put  them  into  a  carriage  and  went  with  them  to 
the  place  indicated  by  the  coachman  Bardot.  There  he 
made  the  mother  and  two  of  the  children  get  out;  he 
took  them  across  a  field  and  killed  them.  He  then 
returned  for  the  other  three  children,  took  them  and 
killed  them.  He  then  buried  all  their  bodies,  smoothed 
the  earth  carefully,  and  returned  to  Paris  between  five 
and  six  o'clock  a.  m.  That  is  how,  says  the  prosecution, 
the  thing  was  done. 

"  Permit  me  to  tell  you,  first,  that  time,  actual  time, 
is  lacking.  Second,  that  witnesses  have  given  details 
which  prove  that  Tropmann  had  accomplices. 

"  First,  as  to  time.  Tropmann  bought  the  implements 
at  five  o'clock.  He  called  for  them  at  eight  o'clock. 
Was  it  he  who  was  seen  to  take  the  omnibus  to  Pantin  ? 
No  one  knows.  If  it  was  he,  he  must  have  taken  it  some 
minutes  before  nine.    It  reached  the  Four  Roads  cross- 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  239 

way  at  nine.  From  there  he  had  750  yards  to  walk  to 
the  place  where  the  trench  was  to  be  dug.  And  that 
trench  —  what  were  its  dimensions.?  10  feet  long  by 
30  inches  wide,  and  20  inches  deep.  Can  you  tell  me 
how  long  it  would  take  a  man  to  dig  such  a  trench  } 

"Next:  he  returned  to  Paris,  went  to  the  Railway 
Hotel,  found  the  Kinck  family,  put  them  into  a  carriage, 
and  started  again.  What  o'clock  was  it  then.?  The 
coachman  tells  us  it  was  fifty  minutes  past  ten  when 
they  got  into  the  carriage.  Will  you  tell  me  how,  in  so 
short  a  time,  he  could  have  gone  to  the  Langlois  field, 
dug  the  grave,  returned  to  Paris,  and  collected  the 
Kinck  family.  Here  the  prosecution  breaks  down  be- 
fore a  physical  impossibility.  When  Tropmann  says: 
*I  had  accomplices;  when  I  reached  the  place  the 
trench  was  dug,'  does  not  that  commend  itself  to  your 
minds  as  true  ? 

"I  continue:  Tropmann  takes  the  carriage  at  fifty 
minutes  past  ten.  They  drive  to  the  corner  of  the 
Four  Roads.  From  there  to  the  spot  where  the  trench 
is  dug  is  750  yards.  He  takes  his  first  three  victims 
there  and  kills  them.  Then  he  returns  over  the  750 
yards  for  the  other  three  victims.  How  long  was  he 
absent  on  that  first  trip  ?  The  coachman  says  twenty 
minutes.  Is  it  possible  that  in  twenty  minutes  he  could 
have  walked  1 500  yards  and  killed  three  persons  ?  If 
he  had  taken  an  hour,  —  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
even,  —  I  might  admit  it,  —  but  twenty  minutes !  it  is 
an  impossibility ! 

"  Had  this  man  herculean  strength  he  could  not  do 


240  MEMOIRS   OF 

impossibilities.  He  could  not  kill  three  persons  in 
a  moment  so  that  none  of  them  uttered  a  cry,  none 
of  them  attempted  to  escape. 

"Am  I  here  to  rehabilitate  Tropmann?  Is  that  my 
task  ?  No !  But  I  say  to  the  prosecution :  '  There  were 
four  murderers  and  you  are  trying  only  one  of  them. 
In  God's  name,  in  the  name  of  law  and  justice,  seek 
and  you  will  find.    Do  not  close  the  door  to  truth.' " 

These  words  had  no  effect.  The  prosecution  was 
carried  on  to  the  last  in  such  a  way  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  the  jurors  to  see  clearly  into  these  crimes. 
The  shades  of  Tropmann's  accomplices  passed  before 
their  eyes  like  the  fugitive  shadows  of  some  invisible 
object. 

Tropmann  was  found  guilty  of  all  the  murders  of  the 
Kinck  family  and  condemned  to  death.  He  was  exe- 
cuted on  the  19th  of  January,  1870.  His  last  words 
to  the  excellent  Abbe  Croze  were:  "Be  sure  to  tell 
Monsieur  Claude  that  I  persist." 

I  went  to  see  Tropmann  as  soon  as  he  was  moved 
from  the  Conciergerie  to  the  cells  for  the  condemned 
at  La  Roquette  and  advised  him  to  write  down  all  that 
he  had  told  me  and  send  it  to  the  Procureur  GeneraL 
That  evening,  when  I  returned  to  his  cell,  he  gave  me 
a  sealed  letter  which  I  immediately  forwarded  to  my 
chiefs.  It  contained  all  that  Tropmann  had  told  me 
about  the  pocket-book.  He  described  it  as  being  of 
black  leather,  wrapped  in  a  silk  handkerchief  with  red 
squares,  buried  near  Cernay.  It  contained,  he  said,  the 
names  of  his  accomplices.    As  the  court  had  denied 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  241 

the  existence  of  those  accomplices,  the  letter  was  con- 
sidered a  mere  ruse  to  delay  his  last  hour.  No  search 
was  ordered. 

Vexed  at  the  fixed  determination  of  the  authorities, 

I  took  upon  myself  to  bring  Mme.  D ,  the  keeper  of 

the  English  tavern,  to  Tropmann's  cell  in  La  Roquette. 
She  had  seen  him  on  the  day  after  the  murder  con- 
versing with  the  confederate  whom  he  found  dead  at 
Havre.  He  was  much  moved  when  he  saw  her  and 
promised  to  write  to  her  and  give  her  the  names  of  his 
accomplices.  He  did  not  do  so,  and  when  I  asked  him 
why  he  did  not  keep  his  promise,  he  answered : 

"  For  her  sake.  If  they  knew  they  were  in  her  power, 
they  would  kill  her." 

Thus  ended  this  mysterious  affair.  The  truth  of  it 
was  not  sought  and  will  never  be  known. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE   SECOND  THUNDERCLAP 
VICTOR  NOIR 


TROPMANN  had  scarcely  left  the  prison  of 
the  Conciergerie  for  the  cells  for  the  con- 
demned of  La  Roquette  when  a  prince  of  the 
Emperor's  family  entered  it. 

On  the  loth  of  January,  1870,  a  young  man  staggered 
out  of  the  half-opened  door  of  a  house  at  Auteuil,  the 
residence  of  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte.  Immediately 
after  him  came  another  man,  smaller  and  rather  older 
than  the  first,  waving  his  hat  and  crying  out : 

"  There  's  murder  at  Prince  Pierre's !  " 

A  concierge  of  the  next  house,  named  Fauch,  saw 
the  first  young  man  fall  as  he  crossed  the  roadway. 
Running  to  him,  he  lifted  him,  and  carried  him,  by  the 
help  of  a  mason,  to  the  shop  of  a  neighbouring  apo- 
thecary. There  they  unbuttoned  his  coat  and  found 
blood  flowing  from  a  small  wound  in  the  left  breast. 
The  death-rattle  was  then  in  his  throat.  The  apothecary, 
seeing  the  gravity  of  the  case,  said : 

"  I  can  do  nothing  without  a  physician." 

At  this  moment  the  second  person  who  had  come 
from  the  Prince's  house  entered  the  shop.  The  con- 
cierge recognized  him,  and  said : 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  243 

"  Monsieur,  why  did  you  not  help  your  friend  ? " 
He  answered,  showing  his  torn  overcoat,  that  he  was 
wounded  himself.  He  had  scarcely  uttered  the  words 
when  a  physician  entered  the  shop.  He  came  from  the 
side  of  the  street  where  a  hackney-coach  had  been 
standing  ever  since  the  two  wounded  men  had  entered 
the  Prince's  house.  The  companion  of  the  younger 
man,  who  now  gave  no  signs  of  life,  said  to  the 
physician : 

"  You  do  not  know  him.    He  is  Victor  Noir." 
"Yes,  it  is  he,"  replied  the  physician,  shaking  his 
head.  "  Or  rather,  it  was  he.  Poor  lad !  It  is  all  over!  — 
only  twenty  years  old ! " 

The  companion  of  Victor  Noir,  killed  by  Prince 
Pierre  Bonaparte,  was  Ulrich  de  Fonvielle.  In  the 
coach,  which  stood  in  the  street  during  the  interview 
between  Fonvielle  and  Noir  with  the  Prince,  was 
Paschal  Grousset,  sub-editor  of  the  Marseillaise,  The 
physician  who  ran  to  the  help  of  the  dying  man  was  not 
ignorant  of  the  dreadful  results  of  that  interview,  be- 
cause Fonvielle  had  abandoned  Victor  Noir  on  leaving 
the  house  and  had  gone  to  the  coach  in  which  was 
Paschal  Grousset  before  he  went  to  the  apothecary's. 
By  that  time  Victor  Noir  was  dead. 

Two  hours  later  all  Paris  knew  that  the  youngest 
reporter  of  the  democratic  press  had  been  killed  by 
a  Bonaparte.  The  news  reached  the  Chateau  and  the 
faubourgs  at  the  same  time  —  the  Chateau  to  take 
instant  means  to  ward  off  this  new  thunderbolt;  the 
faubourgs  to  put  to  profit  that  bolt,  which,  skilfully 


244  MEMOIRS    OF 

directed,  might  fire  all  the  powder-mines  and  blow  up 
the  Tuileries. 

Before  explaining  what  had  brought  Victor  Noir  and 
Fonvielle,  openly,  and  Paschal  Grousset,  secretly,  to 
Auteuil,  I  will  quote,  verbatim,  the  statement  made  by 
Fonvielle  of  the  interview  with  the  Prince,  which  ended 
in  the  death  of  Noir. 

"On  the  loth  of  January,  1870,  we  went,  Victor  Noir 
and  I,  to  the  house  of  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte,  59,  rue 
d'Auteuil.  We  were  sent  by  M.  Paschal  Grousset  to 
ask  satisfaction  from  Prince  Bonaparte  for  his  insulting 
articles  against  M.  Paschal  Grousset,  published  in  the 
Avenir  de  la  Corse  [Future  of  Corsica]. 

"  We  gave  our  cards  to  two  servants.  They  showed 
us  into  a  little  parlour  on  the  ground  floor  to  the  right. 
After  a  few  minutes,  they  took  us  up  to  the  first  floor, 
through  a  guard-room,  to  a  salon.  A  door  opened  and 
M.  Pierre  Bonaparte  entered  the  room.  We  advanced 
towards  him,  and  the  following  words  were  exchanged 
between  us: 

" '  Monsieur,  we  come  from  M .  Paschal  Grousset  to 
hand  you  this  letter.' 

"  *  Then  you  do  not  come  from  M.  Henri  Rochefort, 
and  you  are  not  of  his  crew  ? ' 

" '  Monsieur,  we  come  for  another  matter  and  I  beg 
you  to  take  cognizance  of  this  letter.' 

"  I  held  the  letter  out  to  him.  He  took  it  and  went 
to  a  window  to  read  it.  He  read  it.  After  crumpling 
it  in  his  hand,  he  returned  to  us. 

"  *  I  have  attacked  M.  Rochefort,'  he  said,  *  because 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  245" 

he  IS  the  standard-bearer  of  debauchery.  As  for 
M.  Grousset,  I  have  no  answer  to  give  to  him.  Are  you 
one  with  those  carrion  ? ' 

"  Victor  Noir  replied : 

" '  Monsieur,  we  are  one  with  our  friends.* 

"  Then,  advancing  quickly,  the  Prince  gave  Victor 
a  blow  on  the  face  with  his  left  hand,  while  with  his 
right  he  pulled  a  revolver  out  of  his  pocket  and  fired 
at  Noir,  who  sprang  at  the  shot,  put  his  hands  to  his 
breast,  and  plunged  through  the  door  by  which  we  had 
entered. 

"The  murderer  then  rushed  towards  me  and  fired 
at  me.  I  seized  a  pistol  which  I  had  in  my  pocket,  and 
while  I  was  trying  to  take  it  from  its  case,  he  sprang 
upon  me;  but  when  he  saw  that  I  was  armed  he  re- 
coiled, placed  himself  before  the  door,  and  aimed  at 
me.  Comprehending  that  if  I  fired,  it  would  be  said 
that  we  were  the  aggressors,  I  opened  a  door  behind 
me  and  rushed  out,  crying :  *  Murder ! '  As  I  left  the 
room,  a  second  shot  went  through  my  overcoat.  I  then 
found  Victor  Noir,  who  had  gone  down  the  staircase 
into  the  street  and  was  dying." 

Such  was  the  statement  of  Ulrich  de  Fonvielle,  in 
which  no  question  is  raised  as  to  the  attitude  of  Paschal 
Groussef  s  seconds  towards  their  aggressor. 

At  the  moment  when  the  terrible  news  flew  through 
Paris,  the  Emperor  was  returning  from  a  hunt.  He 
turned  very  pale  on  hearing  it.  He  felt  that  the  pistol 
of  his  imprudent  cousin  had  struck  him  even  more  di- 
rectly than  it  had  struck  its  intended  victim.  He  seemed 


246  MEMOIRS   OF 

overwhelmed  by  this  new  thunderbolt  In  spite  of  his 
phlegmatic  nature,  he  could  not  hide  his  poignant  emo- 
tions. He  said  to  Emile  Ollivier  and  to  the  Minister 
of  the  Interior : 

"  I  approve  of  what  you  have  done.  No  one  of  my 
family  can  be  above  the  laws." 

Prince  Pierre,  however,  comprehending  the  gravity 
of  his  position,  did  not  wait  for  the  authorities  to  make 
him  a  prisoner.  In  vain  did  zealous  Bonapartists  rush 
to  Auteuil  to  congratulate  him  on  having  "  responded 
so  well  to  the  threats  of  the  canaille!'  The  Prince 
replied : 

"Do  not  congratulate  me;  it  is  a  frightful  misfor- 
tune!" 

And  he  went  to  the  Conciergerie,  accompanied  by  the 
commissary  of  police  at  Auteuil,  and  gave  himself  up. 

The  following  is  a  brief  statement  of  what  led  to  that 
"  frightful  misfortune,"  as  the  Prince  justly  termed  it. 

A  lively  polemic  was  going  on  between  the  editor- 
in-chief  of  the  Revanche,  a  liberal  newspaper,  published 
in  Corsica,  and  the  editor-in-chief  of  the  Avenir  de  la 
Corse,  a  paper  devoted  to  the  imperial  family.  Prince 
Pierre,  who  had  plenty  of  leisure,  not  being  employed 
at  the  Chateau,  used  some  of  his  idle  hours  in  writing 
articles  to  the  Avenir  de  la  Corse,  flagellating  the 
adversaries  of  his  family. 

"  Let  us  leave  these  vitiolV,'  he  wrote,  "  to  the  oppro- 
brium of  their  treachery;  and  let  me  be  permitted  to 
recall  the  saying  of  an  American  diplomatist  who, 
apropos  of  the  filth  that  certain  journals  fling  at  the 


•   MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  247 

Column,  said  that  France  herself,  that  great  country, 
was  better  known  in  the  universe  through  Napoleon 
than  Napoleon  was  known  through  France.  In  spite 
of  the  snails  crawling  up  the  bronze  of  that  column, 
tracking  it  with  their  slime,  the  glory  of  the  great  man 
can  never  be  tarnished. 

"  Let  Corsicans  cease  to  trouble  themselves  about  the 
alienations  that  the  infamous  pamphleteers  of  Bastia 
are  striving  to  establish  in  our  almost  unanimous  na- 
tional sentiments  —  sentiments  that  have  risen  here  to 
the  level  of  a  national  religion. 

"  Let  our  dear  Corsica  be  ever  proud  of  its  oneness 
with  France  and  with  her  Elect. 

''Viva gli  nostril  P.  N.  Bonaparte." 

To  this  the  editor  of  the  Revanche  replied : 

"  This  Prince  is  not  a  Corsican.  He  stigmatizes  as 
beggars  and  vitioli  independent  citizens  who  could  give 
him  lessons  in  patriotism. 

"  Prince,  have  you  forgotten  what  you  wrote  to  the 
citizens  of  Corsica  in  1848,  when,  more  republican  than 
ourselves,  you  came  to  beg  our  suffrages  because  you 
saw  in  a  republican  government  the  means  of  making 
a  fortune  ?  Well,  we  note  the  extravagant  threats  of 
Pierre  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  we  leave  to  him  his 
responsibility  for  them." 

The  Marseillaise,  edited  by  Henri  Rochefort,  one  of 
its  sub-editors  being  Paschal  Grousset,  now  took  a  hand 
in  the  matter.  The  quarrel  grew  venomous  and  as- 
sumed in  Paris  other  proportions  than  those  of  a  mere 


248  MEMOIRS   OF 

Corsican  and  local  dispute.    Prince   Pierre  wrote  to 
Rochefort: 

"  You  insult  me  by  the  pens  of  your  underlings.  It  is 
very  natural.  But  my  turn  will  come.  If  your  breast 
is  not  armoured  by  your  inkstand,  if  you  consent  to 
draw  the  bolts  which  render  your  honourable  person 
inviolable,  you  will  not  find  me  in  a  palace  or  a  castle. 
I  live  at  59,  rue  d'Auteuil,  and  I  promise,  if  you  come 
there,  not  to  say  that  I  am  out.  Awaiting  your  reply, 
I  have  the  honour  to  salute  you." 

It  was  after  this  exchange  of  letters  that  Paschal 
Grousset  sent  Victor  Noir  and  Fonvielle  to  demand 
satisfaction  of  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte ;  Paschal  Grous- 
set himself  awaiting  the  result  of  the  interview  in  a 
hackney-coach ! 

The  drama  of  Auteuil  was  the  prologue  of  another 
drama,  marked  deep  into  the  life  of  a  people.  That  drama 
was  the  year  1 870-1 87 1 :  the  year  of  war,  of  defeat,  of 
invasion,  of  the  Commune  —  L'Annee  Terrible. 

That  nothing  might  lessen  the  violence  of  the  shock 
which  the  "  irreconcilables  "  were  preparing  against  the 
Chateau,  the  editor  of  the  Marseillaise  wrote  and  pub- 
lished at  the  head  of  his  paper  on  the  evening  after 
the  murder  the  following ; 

"I  was  weak  enough  to  believe  that  a  Bonaparte 
might  be  something  else  than  a  murderer. 

"  I  rashly  imagined  that  an  honourable  duel  was  pos- 
sible with  a  member  of  that  family  in  whom  murder 
and  stealthy  traps  are  the  tradition  and  the  habit. 

"Our  collaborator.  Paschal  Grousset,  shared  my  error; 


HENRI    ROCHEFORT 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  249 

and  to-day  we  mourn  our  poor,  dear  friend,  Victor  Noir, 
murdered  by  the  bandit,  Pierre  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 

"For  eighteen  years  now  France  has  been  in  the 
bloody  hands  of  these  cut-throats  and  ruffians,  who,  not 
content  with  shooting  down  Republicans  in  the  streets, 
draw  them  into  vile  traps  to  murder  them. 

"French  people!  do  you  not  think  there  has  been 
enough  of  this  ? 

"  Henri  Rochefort." 

A  pistol-shot  fired  on  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines 
had  decided  the  fall  of  Louis-Philippe's  monarchy;  a 
pistol-shot  fired  by  a  Bonaparte  decided  the  fall  of  the 
Empire.  Henri  Rochefort  picked  up  the  ball  that  killed 
his  lieutenant  and  fired  it,  in  more  deadly  fashion, 
against  a  throne  that  had  no  longer  any  supporter  but 
Emile  Ollivier. 

On  the  day  of  this  catastrophe  I  was  ordered  to  take 
steps  against  the  hidden  legions  whose  leaders  were 
now  making  open  war  against  the  Empire.  All  the  po- 
lice were  set  to  work  at  this  call  of  the  editor-in-chief  of 
the  Marseillaise  I  I  sent  them  into  the  most  dangerous 
quarters  to  maintain  order  and  control  the  over-excited 
minds  of  the  people.  I  own  that  I  was  greatly  troubled 
by  this  terrible  event.  Did  it  not  once  more  put  in 
question  a  shaken  power  ?  a  power  whose  head,  ill  with 
an  incurable  malady  and  without  supporters,  was  at  the 
mercy  of  events  that  daily  grew  more  dangerous,  more 
disquieting  ? 

Having  made  my  dispositions,  I  went  to  see  Mme, 


250  MEMOIRS   OF 

X ,  because  I  knew  that  being  the  neighbour  of 

Prince  Pierre  she  could  give  me  details  about  the 
drama  at  Auteuil  of  which  I  was  ignorant. 

Around  the  house  of  Prince  Pierre  I  found  a  howl- 
ing, hostile  crowd,  swearing  to  avenge  a  "  child  of  the 
people  murdered  by  a  prince."  The  political  police  had 
no  need  to  incite  it  to  a  sham  revolution.  Revolution  in 
actual  form  was  there.  It  might  not  conquer ;  it  might 
again  be  conquered.  But,  in  any  case,  it  put  the  Empire 
more  and  more  on  its  defensive  until  the  day  came  for 
a  final  reckoning.  It  was  with  a  wrung  heart  and  an 
anxious  mind  that  I  made  my  way  through  that  hostile 
crowd  to  the  little  house  of  Mme.  X . 

As  soon  as  she  saw  me,  she  said  in  an  angry 
tone: 

"Well,  Orleanist,  you  ought  to  be  satisfied!  That 
pistol-shot  brings  your  M.  Thiers  and  his  schemes  to 
the  fore." 

I  did  not  expect  this  attack. 

"  My  dear  friend,"  I  said,  "you  judge  me  very  harshly 
when  great  evils  are  threatening  the  Empire.  At  a 
moment  when  the  Emperor  is  in  need  of  every  support 
I  have  come  here  to  get  the  assistance  of  your  informa- 
tion, your  intelligence,  and  your  energy." 

"Forgive  me  if  I  have  again  misjudged  you,"  she 
replied.  "Your  action  is  the  more  honourable  because 
the  Empire  isjichu,  archi-fichu  !  [done  for].  Yes,"  she 
continued,  walking  up  and  down,  and  as  if  speaking  to 
herself,  "the  Empire  is  lost!  That  Prussienne,  who 
has  so  often  lived  in  this  very  house,  has  completed 


MONSIEUPv   CLAUDE  251 

the  work  that  Prussia,  for  ten  years,  has  kept  her  here 
to  do.  The  Emperor  is  not  his  own  master  in  the 
Tuileries  —  or  anywhere  else !  Surrounded  by  foreign- 
ers in  his  palace,  surrounded  by  democracy  in  the  heart 
of  Paris,  he  will  try  in  vain  by  a  new  plebiscite  to  force 
the  universal  suffrage  of  the  peasantry  in  his  favour  — 
he  can't  do  it !  The  foreigners  have  joined  hands  with 
our  inside  enemies  to  dislodge  him  from  the  Tuileries ! 
Has  n't  he  himself  struck  the  first  crow-bar  into  his 
house  by  admitting  that  Emile  Ollivier,  that  Republican, 
into  it?  The  Emperor  is  destroying  himself  —  he  is 
lost,  I  tell  you.  Why  is  he  conspiring  in  the  Tuileries 
precisely  as  he  did  at  Ham  ?  Because  he  no  longer 
knows  how  to  reign,  now  that  he  has  lost  his  Morny, 
his  Billault  to  govern  him !  Well,  then,  let  him  abdi- 
cate!" 

"  Do  you  really  think,"  I  asked,  "  that  the  Empire 
has  come  to  that  ? " 

Mme.  X looked  at  me  disdainfully. 

"And  are  you  simple  enough,"  she  retorted, — 'yoUy 
who  saw  the  revolution  of  1848,  —  not  to  see  that 
the  situation  to-day  is  precisely  the  same,  only  made 
worse  by  the  Orleanists,  who,  behind  M.  Thiers,  have 
joined  with  the  Legitimists  to  stir  up  the  most  vio- 
lent leaders  of  the  lowest  democracy  ? " 

"  Excuse  me,"  I  said,  "  I  'm  nothing  but  a  humble 
policeman.  Living  in  a  world  of  thieves  and  murder- 
ers, I  do  not  possess  your  depth  of  view  —  " 

"  Pshaw !  "  interrupted  Mme.  X ,  who  was  in  a 

fit  of  temper;    "enlarge  that  sphere  of  thieves  and 


252  MEMOIRS   OF 

murderers  and  you  will  have  before  your  eyes  the 
sphere  of  the  political  world." 

"  Another  time,"  I  said,  "  I  should  be  glad  to  listen 
to  your  views  and  discuss  them ;  but  to-night  I  am  on 
another  errand  in  coming  to  see  you." 

"  Speak,  my  friend,  —  I  '11  listen,"  she  said,  sitting 
down  at  a  table  laden  with  papers,  on  which  I  saw  the 
stamps  of  the  Prefecture  —  those  of  the  Division  of  the 
Political  Police. 

"  You  are  the  neighbour  of  Prince  Pierre,  and  you 
must  know  how  the  affair  which  the  Republicans  are 
going  to  make  a  cause  against  the  Emperor  took  place." 

"  Yes,"  she  answered,  pointing  to  a  paper  on  which 
was  written  "  Report  on  the  Affair  at  Auteuil,"  "  and 
I  will  satisfy  you  at  once.  First,  I  know  you  are  too 
wise  to  take  the  testimony  of  that  little  Fonvielle  to 
the  letter." 

"  Of  course  not,"  I  replied;  "otherwise  Prince  Pierre 
would  be  a  ferocious  brute.  But  please  explain  to  me 
exactly  how  the  thing  took  place." 

"  Willingly,"  she  said ;  "  and  the  details  I  now  give 
you  I  got  from  the  Prince's  servants.  Of  course  you 
feel  that  Prince  Pierre  did  not  fire  on  Victor  Noir 
until  he  had  received  provocation  from  him  and  from 
his  companion.  Now  I  am  told  that  Victor  Noir  and 
Fonvielle  were  not  the  courteous  envoys  of  Paschal 
Grousset  that  Fonvielle  makes  out.  They  were  there 
to  set  a  trap." 

"  Do  you  think  the  Prince's  servants  are  more  to  be 
believed  than  Grousset's  friends  ? " 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  253 

"  In  any  case,"  she  replied,  "  the  facts  speak  in  favour 
of  the  Prince.  Do  seconds  arrive  in  the  house  of  a 
man,  to  whom  they  bring  a  challenge,  armed  to  the 
teeth  —  like  Fonvielle,  who  carried  a  sword-cane  and 
a  six-barrelled  revolver  ?  " 

"  Ah  !  "  I  exclaimed,  much  astonished,  "  Fonvielle's 
report  says  nothing  of  that." 

"  Neither  does  it  mention  the  blow  of  Victor  Noir's 
fist  applied  to  the  Prince's  cheek,  while  Fonvielle, 
crouching  behind  an  armchair,  pulled  out  his  pistol 
to  return  the  shot  that  killed  Victor  Noir." 

"  If  things  happened  thus,"  I  said,  "  they  must  have 
been  premeditated.  But  political  passion  will  never 
see  the  Prince  otherwise  than  as  black  as  Paschal 
Grousset's  friends  make  him  out." 

"  No ;  and  that 's  the  misfortune  of  it.  But,  further- 
more, what  do  you  make  of  Paschal  Grousset's  presence 
in  the  street  at  Auteuil  when  he  sends  his  seconds  in 
with  his  challenge?  How  came  a  fourth  personage, 
that  physician,  a  friend  of  the  three  men,  to  be  there 
as  if  by  chance,  in  case  too  warm  an  explanation  might 
end  in  some  tragic  manner  ?  Prince  Pierre's  irascible 
nature  is  well  known;  it  was  only  necessary  to  exas- 
perate him  to  make  him  violent.  That  is  my  opinion  of 
how  and  why  the  affair  took  place,  and  I  have  so  stated 
it  in  my  report  to  the  Political  Division." 

While  we  were  talking  I  could  hear  in  the  streets 
the  threatening  shouts  of  the  multitude.  As  I  made 
my  way  back  through  the  furious  crowd  I  heard  threats 
of  death,  and  saw  sinister  faces  seen  only  in  days  of 


254  MEMOIRS    OF 

revolution.  Graybeards,  and  children  with  haggard 
faces,  muttering  what  was  doubtless  a  secret  order : 

"  To-morrow  the  Chamber  —  then  the  Chateau  ! " 

If  these  people  had  recognized  me,  they  would 
probably  have  made  an  end  of  me  then  and  there,  as 
they  did  of  several  of  my  agents  when  Rochefort  was 
arrested.  Returning  to  the  Prefecture,  I  took  measures 
corresponding  to  the  attitude  of  the  crowd  and  the 
magnitude  of  the  situation.  The  article  in  the  Mar- 
seillaise announcing  the  death  of  Victor  Noir  was 
a  call  to  insurrection.  A  Liberal  deputy  rushed  to  the 
Legislative  Chamber  and  demanded  "justice  for  the 
death  of  a  child  of  the  people."  The  next  morning  all 
the  "hundreds"  of  Belleville,  the  Faubourg  Saint- 
Antoine,  and  the  rue  du  Temple  rose  as  one  man. 
Each  centurion  led  his  company,  all  "  avengers  of  the 
child  of  the  people,"  to  Neuilly,  where  the  body  of 
Victor  Noir  had  been  carried. 

Happily  for  the  Empire,  a  communication  from 
Blanqui  was  circulated  among  the  centurions  the  night 
before  the  funeral.    It  said : 

"  Beware  of  foreign  agents  and  spies." 

This  notice  destroyed  the  unity  of  action  which  had 
grouped  together  the  "  sections  "  of  Paris,  London,  and 
the  Central  Committee  of  the  Place  de  la  Corderie. 

Meantime  the  Chateau  was  taking  the  most  energetic 
measures.  We  were  ordered  to  line  the  roads  to  Neuilly 
with  police  agents  in  civilian  clothes  and  uniforms. 
The  army  was  brought  in  from  Versailles,  the  troops 
camping  on  the  Champs  de  Mars.   Cannon  protected 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  255 

the  Chamber  where  a  Minister  of  the  Empire  drawn 
from  the  ranks  of  the  Liberals  said  to  the  Opposition ; 

"  We  are  moderation  itself,  but,  if  need  be,  we  shall 
become  force." 

On  the  evening  of  Victor  Noir's  burial,  the  Chamber 
was  protected,  inside  and  out,  by  a  regiment  of  the  volti- 
geurs  of  the  guard,  with  sentinels  posted  on  the  Pont  de 
la  Concorde.  A  squadron  of  police  guarded  the  head  of 
the  bridge.  At  five  o'clock,  the  vanguard  of  the  revo- 
lutionary people,  returning  from  the  funeral  to  invade 
the  Chamber,  encountered  this  squadron,  behind  which 
pawed  the  horses  of  the  guard,  while  through  the  bay- 
onets could  be  seen  the  cannon,  ready  to  pour  shells 
among  the  populace  bent  on  "  avenging  its  child." 

Confronted  with  this  spectacle  the  vanguard  dis- 
banded. The  revolution  did  not  take  place  that  day. 
But  from  that  day  revolutionary  Paris  "  felt  its  elbows," 
marching  together  in  close  ranks.  The  Empire  held  by 
a  thread,  —  a  thread  which  it  broke  itself,  when,  to 
escape  revolution,  it  declared  war,  only  to  fall  by  inva- 
sion. 

At  the  time  of  the  murder.  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte, 
who  had  been  ill,  was  convalescent.  Given  the  cold 
shoulder  at  the  Chateau  since  making  a  plebeian  mar- 
riage, he  was  almost  proscribed  by  his  august  family. 
This  son  of  Lucien,  after  leading  throughout  the  world 
a  life  of  adventure  —  carbonaro  in  Italy,  trapper  in  the 
wild  West,  playing  as  readily  with  dagger  and  revolver  as 
he  did  on  his  guitar,  —  he  had  ended,  now  that  he  was 
reaching  old  age,  in  a  life  of  absolute  retirement.     He 


256  MEMOIRS    OF 

desired  only  to  live  forgotten  at  Auteuil,  where  he  de- 
voted himself  to  works  of  literature  and  science. 

It  was  not  his  wish  to  enter  the  political  struggle, 
but  the  Corsican  newspapers  of  the  Opposition  pursued 
him  into  the  peaceful  retreat  he  had  chosen  like  his 
father  Lucien.  It  was  not  his  fault  if  an  ambitious  Cor- 
sican forced  him  to  reenter  the  lists  by  attacking  his 
name  and  family.  Then  it  was  that  Victor  Noir,  an 
enfant  terrible,  was  made  to  take  part  in  the  affair, 
and  as  ill  luck  would  have  it,  the  most  honest  of  the 
Bonapartes  committed  a  criminal  act  against  a  Parisian 
gamin,  who  saw  in  the  affair  nothing  but  a  fine  chance 
to  carry  a  real  challenge  to  a  prince. 

Victor  Noir  belonged  to  the  battalion  of  young  demo- 
cratic journalists  under  the  orders  of  the  most  influen- 
tial of  its  members.  He  began  as  a  political  reporter. 
No  one  seeing  that  tall,  strong  fellow,  with  a  baby  face, 
rosy  as  a  doll,  with  smiling,  sensual  lips,  saucy  nose, 
cheeks  like  a  pippin  apple,  and  little  Chinese  eyes,  from 
which  darted  a  lively,  roguish  glance  —  no  one,  I  say, 
seeing  that  round,  young  head  on  its  good-natured,  giant 
body,  would  have  supposed  him  to  be  the  writer  of  those 
terrible  Nouvelles  a  la  main,  which  were  far  more  dis- 
agreeable to  the  authorities  than  a  riot  in  the  streets. 

When  his  superiors  singled  him  out  to  go  to  Auteuil 
with  Ulrich  de  Fonvielle,  he  exclaimed,  with  his  gamin 
laugh : 

"I,  Victor  Noir,  second  in  a  duel  with  a  prince! 
That 's  chic  enough,  is  n't  it  ?  " 

And  before  getting  into  the  coach  to  go  to  Auteuil, 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  257 

he  walked  up  the  Boulevard  Montmartre,  saying,  in 
the  Cafe  de  Madrid  and  the  Cafe  de  Suede: 

"I  am  ordered  to  carry  a  challenge  from  Grousset 
to  a  Bonaparte.  I,  who  am  just  on  the  eve  of  being 
married.  Have  n't  I  luck }  Why,  it  is  like  having  two 
weddings ! " 

And  this  great  child,  the  joy  of  the  boulevards  in  his 
long  ulster,  his  immense  grey  hat  with  its  broad  brim 
and  its  hairy  surface,  appeared  that  morning  dressed  as 
a  "gentleman"  of  the  highest  style  in  order  worthily  to 
represent  his  chief  when  demanding  from  Prince  Pierre 
the  reparation  of  a  duel. 

The  affair  will  always  remain  a  mystery.  The  police 
could  only  unveil,  imperfectly,  a  portion  of  it.  True  is 
it  that  under  the  Empire  we  were  forever  made  to  walk 
in  darkness. 

I  leave  to  the  reader  the  task  of  disengaging  the 
truth  from  the  report  of  Fonvielle  and  the  report  of 

Mme.  X .   Both  reports,  in  my  opinion,  are  partisan. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  in  this  fatal  affair  between 
a  young  reporter,  who  did  not  know  the  Prince  any 
more  than  the  Prince  knew  him,  if  there  was  no  trap 
laid,  there  was,  at  any  rate,  the  hand  of  destiny. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

THE  WAR 


I  HAVE  not  the  presumption,  humble  chief  of 
police  that  I  am,  to  write  the  history  of  the  late 
reign.  But,  while  keeping  to  my  own  sphere,  I 
wish  to  relate  that  which  I  have  seen,  learned,  and 
heard  during  my  long  career.  I  owe  to  my  readers  the 
numerous  notes  that  I  made,  or  gathered,  as  much  on 
the  steps  of  the  throne  as  in  the  lowest  purlieus  of 
society.  The  conversation  I  am  about  to  relate  cannot 
be  called  in  question,  because  it  was  given  out,  after 
the  death  of  Napoleon  HI,  by  him  who  had  the  honour 
to  share  it. 

Ten  days  before  the  declaration  of  war  with  Prussia, 
the  Emperor  was  at  Saint-Cloud,  talking  tete-a-tete 
with  a  Councillor  of  State,  an  old  friend  whom  he  had 
known  at  Ham,  one  of  the  most  faithful  supporters  of 
imperial  authority. 

It  was  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning.  Though  the 
month  was  July,  the  Emperor,  who  suffered  from  nerv- 
ous chills  —  spasms  occasioned  by  his  incurable  malady 
—  had  a  fire  in  the  room.  He  thanked  the  Councillor 
for  sending  him  one  of  his  works  concerning  the  history 
of  his  reign.   Seated  beside  the  fire,  his  face  impassible, 


NAPOLEON    III 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  259 

the  eternal  cigarette  between  his  lips,  he  listened  to  this 
confidant  of  the  prosperous  and  authoritative  days  of 
his  reign.  The  latter  held,  as  nearly  as  possible,  this 
language : 

"What  I  notice  in  the  new  era  of  the  Empire  and 
the  parliamentary  regime  is  the  hesitation,  the  confu- 
sion it  impresses  on  the  direction  of  affairs.  The  public 
mind,  pleased,  as  Your  Majesty  says,  with  the  return  to 
liberalism,  is  nevertheless  perplexed  and  disconcerted 
by  the  Emperor's  apparent  abandonment  of  the  direction 
of  the  government.  The  helm  seems  left  to  itself,  or 
abandoned  to  incompetent  pilots  who  let  the  ship  float 
at  random.  All  is  in  deplorable  confusion.  The  public 
knows  what  the  Opposition  wants,  but  it  no  longer 
knows  what  your  policy  wants,  while  that  policy,  never- 
theless, seems  to  express  the  same  ideas  as  the  Opposi- 
tion." 

"You  are  right,"  replied  the  Emperor;  "that  is  pre- 
cisely the  situation  in  which  France  finds  herself  now 
that  the  Opposition  persists  in  hampering  the  advance 
of  progress  such  as  I  had  dreamed  for  her." 

"  If  that  is  so,  Majesty,  change  your  ministry." 

"  But  it  is  not  going  badly  at  the  present  moment ! " 
cried  the  Emperor,  smiling. 

"Just  so,"  replied  the  Councillor  of  State;  "because 
it  is  delivering  you  over  to  the  power  of  the  '  faithless 
ones'!" 

"  But  Government,"  retorted  the  Emperor,  designedly 
stirring  up  his  Councillor,  "  ought  not  to  be  exclusive ; 
it  ought  not  to  repulse  those  who  approach  it." 


26o  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  True,"  said  the  Councillor,  "  there  again  I  recognize 
imperial  magnanimity,  which  welcomes  all  who  want 
to  serve  it,  no  matter  from  what  side  they  come." 

"  Unfortunately,"  said  the  Emperor,  "  they  come  only 
from  the  side  of  my  enemies.  For  instance,  in  my  own 
headquarters  how  many  Bonapartists  can  you  find  me  ? 
Look  for  them  even  among  those  who  formerly  served 
me  well.  Saint-Arnaud  and  Morny  were  Orleanists ; 
King  Jerome  belongs  to  anybody;  my  cousin  remains 
a  Jacobin ;  the  Empress  is  a  Catholic.  I  don't  see  any 
one  but  Persigny,  my  faithful  Persigny,  who  is  a  Bona- 
partist  —  and  he  is  an  imbecile  !  " 

"  At  least.  Majesty,"  answered  the  Councillor,  purs- 
ing his  lips,  "  those  you  name  are,  or  w^ere,  good  serv- 
ants who  were  not  discouraged,  who  were  not  forced 
out  by  this  introduction  of  liberals.  To-day,  you  not 
only  discourage  your  most  devoted  servants  by  giving 
them  over  to  the  Opposition,  but  you  are  teaching 
France  that  the  only  way  to  success  is  through  an 
Opposition  that  is  weakening  the  Empire." 

"  It  is  not  my  fault,"  replied  the  Emperor,  lowering 
his  head  in  a  dreamy  way,  "  if  men  are  lacking."  Then, 
looking  up  at  his  Councillor,  he  added :  "  Assur- 
edly, if  I  had  more  advisers  like  you,  my  dear  friend, 
the  situation  would  not  be  so  bad ;  you  are  the  wood 
of  which  senators  should  be  made." 

''  I  am  deeply  grateful  to  Your  Majesty  for  your 
good  will  to  me,"  replied  the  Councillor,  who  was  anx- 
ious to  get  round  to  the  object  of  his  visit,  namely, 
to  discuss  with  the  Emperor  the  subject  of  the  war  of 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  261 

which  the  latter  had  been  dreaming  since  his  last  plebi- 
scite ;  "  but  it  was  not  to  talk  senate,  or  even  politics, 
that  I  asked  for  the  honour  of  an  interview.  It  was  for 
a  far  more  serious  and  confidential  question." 

"  What  is  it  ? "  cried  the  Emperor,  who  sus- 
pected what  this  friend  of  his  early  years  was  about  to 
say. 

"  I  wish,"  he  replied,  "  to  speak  of  the  King  of 
Prussia,  whose  arrogant  ambition  seems  to  me  intoler- 
able. I  have  tried  to  develop  my  thoughts  in  a  pam- 
phlet, which  I  have  so  far  kept  secret  from  every 
one  except  Your  Majesty  and  Marshal  Leboeuf.  Until 
now  Your  Majesty  has  always  said  to  me :  *  Wait ! '  — 
I  have  waited.  I  now  come  again  to  take  the  opinion 
of  my  sovereign." 

The  Emperor  had  granted  this  secret  audience  for 
the  very  purpose  of  putting  his  confidant  on  this  topic; 
he  therefore  hastened  to  say: 

"  I  know  that  Prussia  is  a  most  implacable  enemy  to 
France.  I  am  as  sure  of  it  as  you  are.  But  to  declare  war 
we  must  have  a  twenty-fold  good  reason ;  our  moral 
power  depends  on  that." 

"  Ah,  sire ! "  exclaimed  the  Councillor,  "  you  have  had 
a  two  hundred-fold  reason  since  1866,  and  occasion  will 
not  be  wanting  to  supply  you  with  a  serious  grievance. 
Prussia  is  not  sparing  of  them." 

"  Would  you  dare  publish  what  you  say  if  I  gave 
you  permission  and  if  your  publisher  would  keep  the 
secret  of  your  authorship  ?  " 

"  There  is  my  publication,"  said  the  Councillor  of 


262  MEMOIRS   OF 

State,  drawing  a  pamphlet  from  his  pocket.  "  It  is  not 
yet  deposited  at  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior." 

This  pamphlet  which  Napoleon  took  from  the  Coun- 
cillor's hand  w^as  entitled  :  "  Prussia  and  the  Rhine." 

•'  You  want  the  Rhine  ? "  said  Napoleon,  after  turn- 
ing over  the  leaves  for  a  time  with  a  pensive  air. 

"  Yes,  sire,  with  ardour !  It  is  our  natural,  our  neces- 
sary frontier.  It  is  the  indispensable  consecration  of  the 
glory  of  France,  and  the  glory  of  your  own  reign." 

"  Yes,  yes,"  said  Napoleon,  shaking  his  head ;  "  but 
it  must  be  done,  not  talked  about." 

"  For  you,  sire,  that  reserve  is  obligatory ;  but  for  us 
it  is  a  duty  to  tell  this  truth.  I  believe  I  serve  my 
country  best  by  pointing  out,  as  I  do  here  "  (motioning 
to  the  pamphlet), "  the  object  that  France  ought  logically 
to  pursue." 

The  Councillor  waited  till  the  Emperor  had  read 
through  the  pamphlet,  afterwards  so  famous.  Then  he 
took  his  leave.  The  Emperor  pressed  his  hand  affec- 
tionately, uttering  thus  the  words  he  dared  not  say, 
because  the  walls  of  even  Saint-Cloud  had  ears.  They 
had  them  that  day  so  effectively  that  a  servant  of  the 
Emperors  household  took  down  the  interview  and 
consigned  his  report  to  a  henchman  of  the  Prussian 
Chancellerie,  That  it  never  reached  Berlin  was  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  messenger  was  killed  at  Ville  d'Avray, 
and  the  papers  were  found  on  his  body. 

Ten  days  after  this  interview  war  was  declared.  The 
declaration,  coming  when  it  did,  took  the  King  of 
Prussia,  Bismarck,  and  Moltke  by  surprise,  although 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  263 

they  had  so  long  done  all  in  their  power  to  provoke  it. 
Was  the  affront  offered  to  the  French  Ambassador  at 
Ems  imaginary?  Did  M.  Benedetti  receive,  yes  or  no, 
that  box  on  his  ear  ?  This  the  Opposition  was  never 
able  to  fathom.  No  matter,  it  served  its  purpose;  an 
insult  offered  to  French  honour  roused  the  nation. 

The  Emperor  knew  well  that  war  was  the  last  means 
that  remained  to  him  of  escaping  revolution;  also  it 
would  enable  him  to  take  vengeance  on  Prussia,  which 
had  spared  him  no  affront  since  1866.  He  attained  his 
aim  for  the  time  being.  By  declaring  war,  he  circum- 
vented the  revolutionaries,  already  on  the  way  to  the 
Tuileries  to  dislodge  him  ;  he  roused  all  France,  which, 
forgetting  Sadowa  and  Bismarck,  now  thought  only  of 
the  insult  offered  at  Ems  to  her  ambassador !  France 
is  always  chivalrous.  Napoleon  worked  upon  her  no- 
blest sentiments  to  rouse  the  nation  and  save  his  falling 
power. 

As  for  me,  it  was  not  without  deep  sadness  that 
I  saw  how,  on  the  declaration  of  war,  my  chiefs,  in 
accord  with  the  Government  agents,  understood  and 
promoted  the  warlike  demonstrations  of  the  population 
of  Paris. 

"  To  Berlin  !  To  Berlin  !  "  shouted  squadrons  of 
my  own  agents,  goading  on  a  populace  whose  leaders 
had  often  been  arrested  and  haled  to  prison  by  those 
very  agents.  Did  I  not  see  my  special  man,  Bagasse, 
with  a  tricolour  cockade  on  his  hat,  singing  chorus  in 
the  faubourgs  to  the  riff-raff !  Did  I  not  meet  Mme. 
X ,  in  a  tricolour  gown,  promenading  the  boulevards 


264  MEMOIRS   OF 

crying  out  with  girls  from  the  Cafe  de  Madrid  :  "  On 
to  Berlin  !  To  Berlin !  " 

The  newspapers  of  the  Palais-Royal,  of  which  ]6mile 
de  Girardin  was  the  great  prophet,  never  ceased  to 
shout :  "  Confidence !  confidence ! " 

The  populace,  trusting  to  writers  of  military  plays 
for  the  circus,  still  believed  France  invincible.  Always 
crazily  patriotic,  as  light-minded  as  they  are  generous, 
they  sincerely  pitied  those  *'  louts  of  Prussians,"  who 
were  about  to  be  devoured  by  our  army. 

When  certain  members  of  the  Opposition,  whose 
remonstrances  had  been  choked  off  in  the  Chamber, 
organized,  in  the  Latin  quarter,  a  demonstration  in 
favour  of  peace,  orders  were  issued  from  the  Prefecture 
to  disperse  that  "  anarchical  and  anti-French  cohort." 
I  met  those  men  six  months  later.  They  formed,  after 
our  disasters,  new  battalions  of  the  army  improvised  for 
the  national  defence.  They  held  the  sword  of  stricken 
France,  those  honoured  martyrs  whom  the  Empire  could 
not  deceive. 

As  for  me,  who  saw  very  close  this  despicable  comedy, 
I  was  determined  not  to  be  mixed  up  in  a  machination 
started  by  the  Ministers  and  worked  up  by  the  agents 
of  the  new  plebiscite.  I  asked  the  Ministry  to  send  me 
in  charge  of  the  Emperor's  baggage-train  to  Metz.  As 
the  police  were  expected  to  play  a  certain  role  in  the 
war,  my  request  was  warmly  granted. 

The  Emperor  and  the  Prince  Imperial  left  Paris  on 
the  morning  of  July  29,  1870,  in  a  special  train  com- 
posed of  several  state  carriages  and   numerous   cars 


.J 


THE   PRINCE   IMPERIAL 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  265 

loaded  with  the  imperial  baggage.  The  Emperor  wore 
the  uniform  of  a  general  of  division ;  the  Prince  Impe- 
rial that  of  a  sub-lieutenant. 

I  was,  as  I  have  said,  a  part  of  that  military  pageant, 
charged  with  watching  over  the  preservation  and  secur- 
ity of  the  imperial  train.  I  had  brought  with  me,  under 
orders  from  the  Prefecture,  my  best,  tried  men,  all  old 
soldiers,  who,  while  acting  as  police  in  camp,  would  re- 
member their  past  calling  and  take  arms  when  neces- 
sary. There  were  over  a  score  of  them,  among  whom 
I  shall  here  name  Bagasse,  the  Requin  [the  Shark], 
and  CEil  de  Lynx  [Lynx-Eye]. 

I  saw  the  Emperor  and  his  son  very  closely  as  they 
got  into  their  carriage,  and  started  for  a  war  full  of  the 
most  terrible  vicissitudes  recorded  in  history.  The  lad 
was  gay,  careless,  almost  joyous,  as  children  of  that  age 
are  wont  to  be.  The  old  man  was  taciturn  and  dreamy. 
When  the  steam-whistle  sounded  and  the  vapour  puffed 
into  the  air,  I  saw  his  impassible  face  contract  as  if  the 
sinister  chuckle  of  that  vapour  had  irritated  his  nerves. 
What  thought  he  as  that  train  started  }  Did  he  think 
that  he  was  going  to  disaster  .f*  that  he  w^as  taking  his 
son  to  exile  —  that  boy  so  unconscious  of  danger,  who, 
during  his  short  life,  was  to  know  nothing  of  war  but 
defeat,  of  grandeur  but  the  heroism  of  death ! 

Napoleon  II  died  to  expiate  the  ambition  of  Napo- 
leon I ;  Napoleon  IV  died  to  expiate  the  ambition,  the 
ill-omened  ambition,  of  Napoleon  III.  And  these  two 
children  succumbed  to  fate  in  exile  on  foreign  soil 
where  their  fathers  left  them ! 


266  MEMOIRS    OF 

Those  who  were  near  the  Emperor  as  the  imperial 
train  drew  out  of  Paris  remembered  afterwards  the 
fixed  look  that  he  laid  on  the  city  from  which  he  was 
departing. 

The  Empress  on  the  previous  evening  had  taken  her 
son  to  the  Invalides  to  kneel  before  the  tomb  of  the 
victor  of  Jena.  As  mother  and  son  left  the  building 
the  military  band  played  as  they  passed  the  Chant  du 
Depart,  One  of  my  agents  mingling  in  the  crowd 
heard  a  soldier  murmur  to  himself : 

"  The  Chant  du  D'epart  —  it  is  the  swan*s  song ! " 

The  soldiers  themselves,  who  at  this  time  joined  their 
regiments  and  marched  to  the  Eastern  Railway  station, 
seemed  to  have  a  consciousness  of  disaster.  They  were 
gloomy.  Their  officers  shared  their  sadness  as  soon  as 
they  were  no  longer  intoxicated  by  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  boulevards,  where  police  and  populace  were  still 
shouting  :  "  To  Berlin  !    To  Berlin !  " 

When  we  reached  Metz,  the  blind  confidence  the 
Emperor  had  placed  in  Marshal  Leboeuf  melted  away 
before  the  crushing  reality.  France,  which  was  entering 
this  war  with  light  heart  and  heedless  mind,  had  neither 
soldiers  nor  officers  ready  for  it.  Instead  of  500,000 
men,  she  could  muster  only  250,000,  because  the  mili- 
tary funds  had  been  squandered ;  because  ministers 
and  sovereigns  had  gone  to  the  bottom  of  the  army 
appropriation ;  because,  since  Sadowa,  military  France, 
ruined  by  the  speculation  of  the  Mexican  war,  had 
only  a  weak  army  to  fight  against  a  million  of  Prussian 
soldiers ! 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  267 

I  saw  that  army  closely  while  I  was  with  the  Em- 
peror's headquarters.  All  the  commanders  of  corps, 
without  concerning  themselves  about  the  unity  of 
military  operations,  thought  only  of  turning,  each  to 
his  own  profit,  some  partial  victory,  that  he  might,  in- 
dividually, have  the  honours  of  war.  They  were  jealous 
of  one  another.  Alas !  they  need  not  have  quarrelled  in 
advance  about  the  credit  of  victory,  for  they  were  all 
going  straight  to  Sedan !  They  themselves  helped  on 
that  result,  for  most  of  our  generals  went  to  the  frontier 
as  if  they  were  going  to  a  review  at  Longchamps,  or  to 
a  camp  at  Saint-Maur. 

At  Metz  we  all  saw  that  which,  at  last,  reached  the 
mind  of  the  Emperor,  as  it  had  been  all  along  in  the 
wise  judgement  of  men  like  M.  Thiers,  but  which, 
apparently,  had  never  entered  the  specialist  brain  of  an 
artilleryman  like  Marshal  Leboeuf. 

We  thought  ourselves  ready,  and  we  were  not !  No 
organization,  no  plan,  no  resources,  disorder  every- 
where ;  waste  and  carelessness  everywhere.  Confusion 
reigned  in  all  branches  of  the  administration  ;  officers 
went  about  in  search  of  their  regiments ;  the  men  of 
the  reserve,  trying  to  join  their  missing  corps,  made, 
as  one  might  say,  the  tour  of  France  before  reaching 
their  destination. 

Marshal  McMahon,  returning  suddenly  from  Africa 
into  the  midst  of  this  confusion,  cried  out  in  despair : 
"We  are  lost!" 

Napoleon  was  terrified.  His  impassibility  was  shaken 
in  presence  of  the  awful  spectacle  which  foretold  the 


268  MEMOIRS   OF 

ruin  of  the  Empire  and  the  condemnation  of  his  own 
life. 

I  and  my  men  were  so  placed  in  the  front  ranks 
that  we  could  see  behind  the  scenes  of  this  theatre  of 
war.  I  can  say  with  certainty  that  Napoleon,  at  the 
sight  of  this  grievous  scene,  was  seized  several  times 
with  a  species  of  vertigo;  he  would  stand  for  an  instant 
as  if  stupefied,  his  eyes  fixed,  his  mouth  dumb  because 
its  paralyzed  tongue  could  make  no  sound.  He  was 
seen  to  weep !  The  generals  around  him  were  forced 
to  take  him  out  of  sight  that  the  army  might  not  see 
that  he  was  weeping ! 

During  this  time  I  was  receiving  letters  from  Paris. 
The  absolute  confidence  of  the  Parisians  saddened  me 
still  more.  The  newspapers  were  saying : 

"  Why  are  they  waiting  ?  What  are  they  doing  ?  Will 
our  victorious  armies  be  ready  for  the  fetes  in  August  .f^ " 

What  they  were  doing,  /  saw.  They  were  organ- 
izing on  the  spot,  at  the  last  instant.  The  confusion 
was  so  great  that  one  regiment  went  off  without  a  sur- 
geon, which  made  a  medical  ofiicer  in  Metz  say :  "  The 
wounded  will  have  to  blow  out  their  brains." 

It  is  not  for  me  to  speak  of  the  war  in  its  details ; 
I  have  to  relate  only  what  is  personal  to  myself,  what 
I  saw,  and  what  came  within  the  scope  of  my  duties. 

After  the  defeat  at  Forbach,  where  the  French  sol- 
diers fought  like  lions  led  by  officers  who,  to  use  the 
term  applied  to  them  by  the  Prussians,  were  asses,  it 
became  necessary  to  beat  our  first  retreat.  My  mission 
as  a  military  policeman  now  began.  The  frontier  of 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  269 

France  lay  open  to  the  enemy.  Not  a  mile  of  that 
ground,  not  a  town  nor  a  village  nor  a  hamlet  was  un- 
known to  German  soldiers  who  for  ten  years  past  had 
surveyed  and  mapped  the  region,  and  who  now  returned 
in  uniforms  to  the  places  where  they  had  lived  and 
dressed  as  peasants. 

The  night  after  the  bloody  advantage  obtained  by 
the  Prussians  at  Wissembourg,  I  was  ordered,  I  and 
my  agents  in  charge  of  the  imperial  train,  to  withdraw 
with  the  baggage-cars  of  His  Majesty  towards  Metz. 
Before  relating  the  incidents  of  this  retreat,  I  wish  to  say 
a  few  words  on  this  war  in  Alsace,  which,  to  my  think- 
ing, had  been  morally  won  by  Prussia  in  the  interval 
since  1866.  I  have  already  given,  in  two  criminal  cases, 
facts  which  prove  the  truth  of  my  assertion,  namely, 
that  if  the  Prussians  entered  Alsace  in  1870  with  ease, 
and  as  if  it  were  their  own  region,  they  owed  it  to  a 
plan  long  laid,  like  the  war  itself,  which  was  to  be  the 
crowning  work  of  the  chancellor — Bismarck. 

I  have,  moreover,  the  proof  of  this  in  a  letter  from 
a  general,  who,  in  1866,  warned  General  Trochu  of  the 
mole-work  going  on  in  that  region.  Here  follows  an 
extract  from  that  letter  addressed  to  General  Trochu 
by  the  general  then  commanding  at  Strasbourg.  [It  is 
written  as  friend  to  friend,  and  uses  the  tutoiement'] 
This  letter  was  furnished  to  me  from  the  cabinet  noir : 

"As  you  are  in  the  way  to  tell  sound  truth  to  the 
illustrious  personages  who  surround  you,  tell  them 
this :  While  we  are  pompously  and  lengthily  deliber- 
ating on  how  to  make  ourselves  an  army,  Prussia  is 


270  MEMOIRS   OF 

very  actively  preparing  to  invade  our  territory.  She  will 
be  ready  to  put  600,000  men  and  1200  cannon  in  the 
field  before  we  have  even  thought  of  organizing  the  in- 
dispensable cadres  for  an  army  of  300,000  and  600  can- 
non. On  the  other  side  of  the  Rhine  there  is  not  a 
German  who  does  not  believe  in  war  in  the  near  future. 
The  most  pacific  (those  who  through  their  connections 
are  most  French)  consider  war  inevitable,  and  cannot 
understand  our  inaction. 

"As  a  cause  must  be  found  for  everything,  they  say 
that  the  Emperor  has  fallen  into  second  childhood. 
Short  of  being  blind,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that 
war  must  break  out  in  a  very  short  time. 

"With  our  stupid  vanity,  our  crazy  presumption, 
we  believe  that  we  can  choose  our  own  day  and  hour 
for  completing  our  organization  and  our  armament !  In 
fact,  my  dear  Trochu,  I  am  of  your  opinion,  and  I  am 
beginning  to  think  that  our  Government  is  struck  with 
lunacy.  If  Jupiter  has  decided  to  destroy  it,  don't  let  us 
forget,  you  and  me,  that  the  destinies  of  the  country  are 
bound  up  with  ours,  and,  if  we  are  not  yet  struck  with 
that  fatal  lunacy,  we  ought  to  exert  all  our  efforts  to 
stop  the  downward  trend  which  is  leading  straight  to 
precipices. 

"  Here  is  a  new  detail  to  which  I  call  your  attention, 
because  it  is  of  a  nature  to  open  the  eyes  of  the  least 
clear-sighted. 

"  For  some  time  past  numerous  Prussian  agents  roam 
about  our  frontier  departments,  especially  the  region 
between  the  Moselle  and  the  Vosges.   They  sound  the 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  271 

minds  of  the  population,  they  act  upon  the  Protestants, 
who  are  numerous  in  those  parts  and  are  much  less 
French  than  is  usually  supposed. 

"  This  part  of  the  population  remains  what  it  was  in 
181 5,  when  it  sent  deputations  to  the  enemy's  head- 
quarters, asking  that  Alsace  be  returned  to  the  'German 
fatherland.'  It  is  well  to  note  this  fact;  for  it  may 
justly  be  considered  to  throw  light  on  the  plans  and 
the  campaign  of  the  enemy  .  .  ." 

Well,  that  letter,  written  confidentially  by  the  Com- 
mandant of  Strasbourg  at  the  period  of  the  Paris 
Exposition  of  1866,  when  Prussia  was  busy  at  her  work 
of  espionage  from  the  banks  of  the  Rhine  to  those  of 
the  Seine,  that  letter,  known  to  the  Emperor  and  the 
Government  because  it  was  sent  to  the  cabinet  noir,  was 
not  taken  as  a  warning  by  the  illustrious  personages  of 
the  Empire. 

To  return  now  to  the  disastrous  campaign  of  1870. 

From  the  beginning  of  the  retreat,  after  Wissem- 
bourg  and  Forbach,  all  was  for  me,  as  for  others,  an 
uninterrupted  series  of  alarms  and  perils.  I,  with  my 
agents,  was  constantly  on  the  railroad,  retreating  from 
station  to  station  for  the  safety  of  His  Majesty's  baggage. 
The  enemy  advanced,  day  by  day ;  every  place  we  left 
was  at  once  filled  by  an  army  of  German  engineers, 
seizing  each  station  and  putting  up  the  telegraph  poles 
of  our  lines,  now  become  Prussian  lines.  Each  French 
train  that  had  not  had  time  to  escape  fell  a  prey  to  the 
enemy. 

I  had  noticed,  at  the  beginning  of  the  campaign, 


2^2  MEMOIRS    OF 

a  soldier  on  the  imperial  train  belonging  to  the  escort. 
He  was  an  Alsatian,  the  sly  expression  of  whose  crafty 
face  told  me  nothing  good  of  him.  Though  he  was  very 
zealous,  very  quick  in  executing  all  orders  that  I  re- 
ceived from  the  staff,  I  distrusted  him.  When  I  spoke 
of  my  doubts  to  a  high  officer  very  close  to  the  Em- 
peror, he  assured  me  I  was  quite  mistaken  in  distrust- 
ing the  man,  who  had  been  attached  for  ten  years  to  the 
palace  of  Saint-Cloud  and  had  proved  himself  a  most 
honest  and  faithful  servant  of  the  imperial  family. 

In  spite  of  this  assurance,  I  continued  to  watch  the 
man,  and  after  the  defeat  at  Wissembourg  I  changed 
the  guard  of  the  train,  confiding  it  wholly  to  Bagasse 
and  his  police  squad.  Whether  from  vexation  at  this 
removal,  or  treachery,  the  faithful  Alsatian  disappeared 
after  the  defeat  at  Wissembourg,  much  to  the  surprise 
of  those  who  had  known  him  at  Saint-Cloud. 

After  Wissembourg,  as  I  have  said,  our  generals  could 
not  hesitate ;  the  frontier  must  be  abandoned  in  order, 
as  they  called  it,  to  "  concentrate."  By  direction  of  the 
Emperor's  staff,  I  ordered  the  engineer  of  the  train  to 
get  up  steam  to  save  His  Majesty's  baggage,  the  enemy 
advancing  upon  us  with  giant  strides. 

The  train  consisted  of  thirty  cars  containing  state 
carriages  (intended  for  the  entry  into  Berlin),  beds,  bed- 
ding, china,  glass,  furniture,  draperies,  and  a  great  variety 
of  other  articles  personal  to  His  Majesty,  including  his 
cash-box.  My  one  thought  was  to  save  that  box.  It 
must  be  saved  at  the  peril  of  my  life.  That  Alsatian 
servant  knew  of  it,  and  I  felt  persuaded  that  before 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  273 

reaching  Metz  our  train  would  meet  with  some  obstruc- 
tion from  the  enemy. 

Never  shall  I  forget  that  sad  and  hopeless  evening. 
All  along  the  banks  of  the  railroad  lay  the  bodies  of 
turcos  and  zouaves,  dead  and  wounded  together.  Blood 
was  soaking  the  roadway,  cut  up  by  balls  and  shells. 
When  I  gave  the  order  to  start,  our  army  was  quitting  its 
position,  leaving  the  dead  and  wounded  in  the  station ! 

The  whistle  of  the  engine  had  scarcely  sounded,  the 
train  was  just  beginning  to  get  in  motion,  when  a  band 
of  Uhlans  galloped  into  the  station.  Their  leader,  at  the 
risk  of  his  life,  rode  straight  to  the  head  of  the  train  and 
ordered  the  engineer  to  stop.  Then  he  turned  and  called 
me  by  name. 

He  was  the  old  and  faithful  servant  of  Saint-Cloud ! 
After  his  soldiers  had  surrounded  the  train,  he  came  to 
me  and  said  with  a  courteous  air,  offering  to  take  my 
hand,  which  I  refused  to  him : 

"  Monsieur  Claude,  surrender ;  you  are  my  prisoner. 
You  are  on  German  territory,  and  this  train  is  ours. 
Surrender  willingly  if  you  do  not  wish  to  share  the  fate 
of  others." 

I  was  surrounded  —  surprised  —  captured !  and  by 
a  German  who  had  lived  on  the  favours  and  benefits  of 
France !  We  were  taken,  a  party  of  resolute  men,  before 
we  had  fought !  All  around  us  lay  the  dead  and  dying, 
and  we  —  healthy,  living  —  must  we  surrender  to  these 
heavy  Germans  without  imitating  those  martyrs,  with- 
out at  least  attempting  to  fight  for  our  country  ? 

But  the  Uhlan  leader  had  scarcely  ceased  speaking 


274  MEMOIRS   OF 

when  a  shot  was  fired.  It  came  from  the  railway  bank 
where  lay  a  wounded  zouave.  That  hero,  before  dying, 
spent  his  last  ball  on  the  Prussian  as  if  to  show  us  our 
duty !  He  had  aimed  so  well  that  the  bullet  struck  the 
Uhlan  leader  full  in  the  breast.  As  he  fell,  the  old, 
wounded  zouave  cried  out  from  the  bank : 

"  Make  haste  !  save  yourselves !  you  are  ten  minutes 
ahead  of  the  Germans." 

"  Vive  la  France !  fire !  "  cried  Bagasse  to  his  com- 
rades, and  instantly  volleys  were  exchanged  between 
my  men  and  the  Uhlans.  The  latter  attempted  to  board 
the  train,  but  most  of  them  fell  on  the  rails,  wounded 
by  the  rain  of  balls  that  poured  from  every  compart- 
ment. 

The  engineer  had  understood  Bagasse.  He  obeyed 
the  shout  of  the  old  zouave  by  putting  on  all  steam. 
The  engine  jostled,  crushed,  buffeted,  and  rammed 
down  men  and  horses,  while  those  who  clung  to  the 
sides  of  the  cars,  fell  back,  struck  by  balls,  wounded  by 
bayonets,  and  were  crushed  by  the  wheels. 

It  was  a  horrible  sight !  But  the  train  went  swiftly 
on. 

When  I  had  recovered  from  the  keen  emotion  caused 
by  these  horrors,  I  said  to  Bagasse,  who  was  stroking 
the  still  hot  barrel  of  his  gun : 

"  Well,  we  played  a  big  game  ! " 

"  And  won.  Monsieur  Claude ;  that 's  the  principal 
thing,"  replied  Bagasse,  twirling  his  moustache. 

"  That  is  to  say,"  I  remarked,  "  we  have  won  the  first 
game,  but  the  enemy  is  close  at  our  heels." 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  275 

"  Pooh  !  "  cried  Bagasse,  "  we  won't  let  him  surprise 
us  again." 

I  did  not  share  his  blind  confidence.  I  was  convinced 
that  the  enemy  would  not  let  go  a  prize  of  which  they 
knew  the  value  through  their  spy.  I  had  but  a  score 
of  men  with  me,  very  resolute  men,  to  be  sure,  and 
a  million  was  well  worth  risking  another  hecatomb. 

My  eyes  ached,  as  we  went  along,  with  the  strain  of 
gazing  at  the  horizon,  and  with  watching  each  roll 
of  the  ground.  In  every  wood,  every  forest,  I  fancied 
I  could  see  the  tip  of  a  lance  or  the  muzzle  of  a  musket. 

Once  at  the  little  way-station  of  Panche,  where  we 
had  to  wait  twenty  minutes  while  they  watered  and  fed 
the  engine,  I  walked  along  the  track  for  a  little  dis- 
tance, taking  Lynx-Eye  with  me.  The  road,  running 
between  sandy  fields,  was  bordered  by  gorse,  low  shrubs, 
and  ferns.  Lynx-Eye  crept  along  like  a  wild  animal  at 
a  little  distance  from  me  studying  the  ground.  Sud- 
denly he  made  me  a  sign.  Creeping  towards  him,  he 
showed  me  on  an  old  road  near  a  little  wood  branches 
of  trees  fastened  together  in  the  form  of  a  cross.  It 
was  evidently  a  signal. 

Since  our  fight  on  the  rails,  and  thanks  to  the  rapid- 
ity of  our  train,  no  enemy  had  overtaken  or  preceded 
us.  Evidently  persons  stationed  along  the  road  were 
signalling  our  passage  to  the  Prussians  behind  us. 
Lynx-Eye  left  me  in  no  doubt  of  this.  Forcing  me  not 
to  raise  my  head  above  the  level  of  a  little  hedge,  he 
showed  me,  among  a  group  of  trees,  a  man,  a  Prussian, 
standing  motionless  as  a  statue  with  his  eyes  fixed  on 


276  MEMOIRS   OF 

the  railroad  track  where  the  long  line  of  the  imperial 
baggage-train  was  waiting. 

The  sentinel  suddenly  turned.  Laying  down  his 
gun  he  took  up  a  stick  on  which  was  fastened  a  hand- 
kerchief and  looked  in  the  opposite  direction,  as  if 
prepared  to  make  some  signal.  Quick  as  lightning, 
agile  as  a  panther,  subtle  as  a  snake,  Lynx-Eye  sprang 
upon  him  with  his  sabre-bayonet.  With  a  sure  hand 
he  drove  the  weapon  in  between  the  shoulders  before 
the  man  could  turn  or  give  a  cry.  He  fell  dead  among 
the  underbrush. 

Taking  the  Prussian's  gun  Lynx-Eye  returned  to 
me,  throwing  down  as  he  came  the  branches  arranged 
as  a  cross. 

"Now,  Monsieur  Claude,"  he  said,  "let  us  go  on. 
The  Prussian  army  may  come,  but  its  sentinel  has 
deserted ;  he  has  taken  a  passport  to  another  country." 

The  joyous  air  of  my  agent  wrung  my  heart.  Hatred 
of  crime  may  have  made  me  from  duty  and  from 
temperament  inexorable  to  hardened  sinners ;  but  this 
Prussian  soldier  might  have  been  the  worthy  father  of 
a  family.  Of  what  was  he  guilty  ?  Of  doing  his  duty ! 
Ah!  war  is  a  terrible  thing!  Men  degenerate  on  both 
sides  into  savages  and  cannibals ! 

I  was  not  delivered  from  these  thoughts  till  our  train 
rolled  into  Metz. 

The  Emperor,  who  had  not  waited  for  his  baggage, 
had  already  returned  to  Metz.  He  now  ordered  me  to 
be  complimented  on  the  "skilful  and  heroic"  manner  in 
which  I  had  saved  his  property.    When  all  the  details 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  277 

of  the  odyssey  of  my  little  troop  became  known,  it 
actually  seemed  as  if  some  of  the  officers  would  make 
me  an  ovation  and  carry  me  in  triumph!  For  having 
saved  the  money-box  and  furniture  of  Napoleon  III 
they  made  as  much  of  a  chief  of  police  as  they  could 
have  made  of  a  marshal  of  the  army  who  had  saved 
France!  Sad  symptom  of  decadence! 

It  was  now  the  14th  of  August.  The  Emperor,  after 
receiving  old  General  Changarnier,  who  came  rather 
late  to  offer  his  services,  decided  to  leave  Metz  and 
return  to  Chalons.  He  was  followed  by  his  baggage- 
train,  still  under  my  care. 

But  I  had  had  enough  of  this  campaign  in  which  I 
had  seen  nothing  but  frightful  disasters.  I  was  heart- 
sick at  the  sight  of  our  poor  soldiers,  filling  the  stations, 
obstructing  the  roads  —  tattered  turcos,  maimed  and 
crippled  cuirassiers  dragging  their  great  twisted  sabres, 
giants  overthrown  by  numbers !  Napoleon,  with  his 
baggage,  followed  these  fugitives,  abandoning  Metz 
when  the  fighting  was  about  to  begin.  He  had  nearly 
reached  Verdun,  when  a  shell  coming  from  a  Prussian 
battery  hidden  in  a  wood  saluted  him  with  its  explo- 
sion. I  was  there  again  to  save  his  baggage,  though 
this  time  I  had  not  my  escort  of  soldier-policemen. 

Taken  in  flank,  pressed  closer  and  closer  by  the 
enemy,  Napoleon  III  ended  at  Verdun  by  throwing 
himself  into  a  third-class  carriage  in  which  he  reached 
Chalons  incognito.  From  there  he  telegraphed  to  the 
Empress : 

"  I  have  no  news  of  McMahon.   The  reconnoitrings 


278  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

on  the  Sarre  show  no  movement  of  the  enemy,  I  hear 
there  has  been  an  engagement  on  the  side  of  General 
Frossard.  It  is  too  far  for  us  to  go  there.  As  soon  as 
I  receive  news,  I  will  send  it  to  you*  —  Napoleon." 

When  he  wrote  those  lines,  the  Emperor  was  shed- 
ding tears  of  blood.  He  had  quitted  Metz  because  it 
was  on  the  point  of  being  invested  by  the  Prussians. 
Why  then  this  new  lie  when  all  was  desperate  t 

Because  France  lives  on  illusions ! 

Because  the  irremediable  defeat,  if  known  to  French- 
men, to  Parisians,  would  have  caused  the  instant  loss 
of  a  throne,  which  the  Empress,  above  all  desired 
ardently  to  preserve  for  her  son. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

AFTER  DEFEAT  — THE  POLITICAL 
GHOSTS 


I  QUITTED  the  imperial  escort  at  Verdun,  whence 
the  Emperor  was  fleeing  to  Chalons,  while  Bazaine, 
face  to  face  with  the  Prussians,  thought  less  of  re- 
pulsing them  than  of  shutting  himself  up  in  Metz,  to 
save  the  last  legions  of  the  Empire.  My  mission  was 
over.  I  left  the  Emperor,  resembling  a  desperate  and 
feverish  gambler  who  loses  and  loses  again,  still  hop- 
ing to  weary  fatality.  He  left  Verdun  with  one  eye  on 
the  frontier  of  Alsace,  now  lost  to  him  forever;  the 
other  on  the  capital  he  could  scarcely  hope  to  see 
again.  He  had  sent  his  son  by  way  of  Mezieres. 

Travelling  alone  from  Metz  to  Verdun,  from  Verdun 
to  Chalons  the  Emperor  still  commanded.  He  com- 
manded at  Metz  by  Bazaine,  who  saved  his  last  troops ; 
he  commanded  in  Paris  by  the  Comte  de  Palikao,  who, 
after  our  disasters,  was  far  more  concerned  in  defending 
himself  against  the  Parisians  than  in  defending  France 
against  the  Prussians. 

I  left  at  Verdun  the  escort  of  my  agents,  all  old  sol- 
diers who  had  resumed  their  muskets  and  now  did 
not  quit  headquarters;  some  to  work,  if  possible,  for 


28o  MEMOIRS   OF 

the  junction  of  Bazaine's  army  with  the  new  army 
under  McMahon ;  others  to  continue  to  defend  the 
baggage-train  of  His  Majesty,  which  bore  in  truth  the 
whole  of  Caesar's  fortune.  The  leaders  of  the  latter, 
Bagasse  and  the  Requin,  were  to  keep  me  informed, 
almost  daily,  of  all  that  happened. 

My  mission  was  ended.  I  had  only  to  return  to  Paris 
and  resume  my  administrative  functions  in  the  service 
of  a  dying  government  which  it  was  my  duty  to  serve 
so  long  as  it  existed  among  its  ruins.  I  left  Verdun  for 
Paris,  accompanied  by  Lynx-Eye,  who,  less  of  a  soldier 
than  Bagasse  and  the  Requin,  was  far  more  valuable 
to  me  at  the  Prefecture  than  he  could  have  been  on  a 
battle-field. 

On  the  road  from  Verdun  we  found,  all  the  way, 
a  stream  of  wretched  soldiers,  crippled,  wounded,  beg- 
ging, who  were  making,  without  orders,  without  leaders, 
a  further  retreat  to  Chalons.  Never  was  any  unexpected 
defeat  followed  by  such  confusion  and  total  want  of 
discipline.  Our  soldiers,  broken  down  by  fatigue  even 
more  than  by  defeat,  without  rations,  abandoned  by 
their  officers,  had  nought  but  bitterness  in  their  hearts 
and  curses  on  their  lips.  They  robbed  to  live.  Their 
behaviour  was  such  that  the  population,  terrified,  fled 
at  their  approach.  When  we  arrived,  Lynx-Eye  and  I,  at 
the  gates  of  Chalons,  we  were  stopped  by  two  soldiers 
who  demanded  our  money  or  our  lives ! 

Yet  at  that  very  moment  the  Prefect  of  Verdun 
was  telegraphing  to  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  in 
Paris : 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  281 

"We  heard  yesterday  (August  16)  the  growling  of 
cannon  between  Metz  and  Verdun.  Persons  arriving 
from  that  direction  say  that  a  great  battle  began  at  day- 
break, also  that  the  Prussians  lost  over  40,000  men  in 
the  battle  of  the  previous  evening.  They  fought  to  the 
very  environs  of  Verdun,  and  the  enemy  has  been  seen 
making  his  retreat  to  the  southward." 

The  Minister  of  War  on  his  side  made  known  this 
news  to  the  Chamber,  adding  the  following  hardly  less 
comforting  information : 

"It  is  not,  properly  speaking,  a  defeat  which  the 
Prussian  army  has  met  with  before  Metz,  but  a  con- 
siderable checL  I  have  not  the  official  dispatches,  and 
I  cannot  therefore  enter  into  details ;  I  can  only  say 
that  the  enemy  has  met  with  successive  checks,  and  that 
they  are  retreating  upon  Commercy." 

Was  it  permissible  thus  to  abuse  the  credulity  of 
France  when  at  any  moment  the  truth,  the  horrible, 
heart-breaking  truth,  might  become  known  ?  To  put 
to  sleep  still  further  the  quivering,  anxious,  breathless 
population,  the  same  Minister  murmured  in  the  corri- 
dor of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  in  a  way  to  be  over- 
heard by  his  most  dangerous  opponents : 

"  Ah !  if  all  were  known  that  /  know,  Paris  would  be 
illuminated ! " 

The  Empire  was  to  fall  by  that  on  which  it  had 
lived  —  deception. 

When  I  reentered  Paris  towards  the  last  of  August, 
I  was  frightened  at  the  blind  confidence  of  the  Paris- 
ians who  believed  in  a  turn  of  fortune  that  existed 


282  MEMOIRS   OF 

only  in  the  self-interested  minds  of  the  supporters  of 
the  Government.  I  went  immediately  to  the  Prefecture 
of  Police  to  make  my  report  and  render  an  account  of 
what  I  had  seen,  —  seen  with  my  own  eyes,  —  which 
agreed  not  at  all  with  the  false  dispatches  of  the  Min- 
ister of  War. 

At  the  Prefecture  I  found  men  evidently  anxious, 
and  yet  my  chiefs  would  hardly  listen  to  me.  They  told 
me  that  such  news  did  not  concern  them,  they  con- 
cerned the  Minister  of  War.  I  went  to  the  Ministry  of 
War.  I  found  there  as  elsewhere  the  same  confusion, 
the  same  disorder,  the  same  anxiety.  When  I  explained 
the  desperate  situation  of  the  army  they  answered 
me: 

"  If  we  only  had  troops  to  control  the  people  when 
Paris  knows  all !  But  we  have  not !  We  have  not  a 
single  general  here  on  whom  we  can  depend.  General 
Trochu  is  watching  us.  That  is  why  he  came  back 
from  Chalons,  by  the  advice  of  the  Opposition,  to  watch 
the  Empress! " 

At  the  Ministry  of  War,  at  the  Prefecture  of  Police, 
in  all  the  public  offices,  they  were  thinking  more  of 
saving  the  Empire  and  themselves  than  of  saving  the 
country  in  danger! 

I  had  no  sooner  resumed  my  functions  than  I  felt 
myself  surrounded  by  a  vast  void.  I  received  no  orders 
from  my  chiefs.  Commissaries  of  police,  officers  of  the 
force  came  to  receive  instructions  which  were  not  given. 
For  me,  as  for  them,  the  nearer  the  final  defeat  ap- 
proached, the  more  the  Prefect  was  "  busy,"  the  head  of 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  283 

the  municipal  police  "  received  no  one";  the  Chief  of  the 
Political  Police  "  could  not  be  disturbed  because  he  was 
working  day  and  night  with  the  Prefect." 

At  what  were  they  working  while  the  Empress- 
Regent,  coming  in  from  Saint  Cloud  to  the  Tuileries, 
saw  fewer  and  yet  fewer  of  her  servitors  around  her? 
The  Prefect  of  Police  and  the  chiefs  of  his  bureau 
were  working  at  burning  the  papers  that  were  most 
compromising  for  the  adherents  of  the  Empire.  The 
thread  of  blue  vapour  that  rose  from  the  chimneys  of 
the  Prefecture  in  those  August  days  told  the  tale 
of  their  serious  and  feverish  occupations. 

According  as  the  level  of  the  imperial  power  dropped 
by  degrees  in  the  irritated  public  mind,  so  its  adversaries 
of  old  date  rose  higher  and  higher  by  several  cubits. 
Megy,  the  conspirator  of  La  Villette,  was  cheered  by 
the  lawyers  of  the  liberal  party  in  the  High  Court  of 
Justice  when  he  left  Blois  to  be  transferred  to  the  prison 
of  the  Cherchemidi ;  Megy,  on  the  eve  of  being  tried 
for  having  attempted  to  overthrow  the  Government, 
arms  in  hand,  was  considered  to  be  a  martyr ! 

Rochefort  was  serving  his  sentence  without  rigour — 
a  sentence  for  having,  under  Blanqui's  direction,  insti- 
gated civil  war  after  the  death  of  Victor  Noir.  While 
awaiting  the  moment  when  the  gates  of  his  prison 
should  be  opened  for  him,  Rochefort  was  fraternizing 
with  the  director  of  the  prison  at  suppers  where  the 
black  bread  of  convicts  did  not  figure !  When  my  agents 
from  habit  notified  me  of  the  way  in  which  the  prison 
authorities  were  treating   "the  politicals,"  I  received 


284  MEMOIRS   OF 

orders  to  shut  my  eyes,  and  let  things  take  their 
course. 

I  own  that  as  for  Rochefort,  whom  I  had  known  in 
better  days  when  we  both  frequented  the  theatres,  he 
as  a  reporter  on  the  Figaro,  and  I  under  the  mask  of 
Monsieur  Auguste,  a  retired  clerk,  I  own  that  I  was 
glad  of  the  order  to  shut  my  eyes  as  to  the  way  his 
amiable  gaolers  treated  him.  I  had  known  Rochefort 
when  he  was  a  jovial,  witty  jester,  and  his  infernal 
situation  had  troubled  me. 

Each  day,  which  was  in  fact  one  day  the  less  for  the 
Empire,  I  felt  more  and  more  isolated  at  the  Prefecture. 
I  foresaw  that  the  moment  was  coming  when  the  news 
of  a  defeat,  however  mitigated  it  might  be  by  passing 
through  the  Tuileries  and  the  Ministry  of  War,  would 
lead  to  the  invasion  of  all  the  public  offices  by  the 
people.    I  expected  it  and  I  was  resigned  to  it. 

The  one  thing  that  consoled  me  in  the  unspeakable 
abandonment  that  surrounded  me  was  the  sight  of  the 
flag  still  waving  from  the  dome  of  the  Tuileries.  "At 
least,"  I  said  to  myself,  "the  Empress  is  faithful  to 
France.  She  is  at  her  post  when  all  the  others  abandon 
theirs ! " 

I  was  under  the  weight  of  these  reflections  when  I  re- 
ceived, at  my  own  house,  Avenue  Victoria,  a  note,  the 
handwriting  on  which  was  well  known  to  me.  The 
note  was  from  M.  Thiers.  He  reminded  me  in  a  few 
words  of  the  promise  I  had  made  him  some  years 
earlier.  He  warned  me  that  the  moment  was  approach- 
ing when  I  must  burn  what  I  had  obeyed,  and  obey, 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  285 

for  the  sake  of  the  country  in  danger,  what  I  had 
burned.  I  own  that  the  note  perplexed  me  as  much  as 
the  very  different  note  I  had  received  twenty  years 
earlier  from  the  adversaries  of  my  first  protector. 

If  I  had  been  a  courtier,  like  so  many  other  Brutuses 
of  that  day,  I  should  have  abandoned  Caesar  in  his 
misfortunes  on  receiving  this  call.  But,  I  repeat  it,  I  am 
not  a  seeker  after  favour.  The  more  misfortune  was 
about  to  strike  a  sovereign  lady,  courageously  remaining 
in  the  Tuileries  to  face  the  storm  that  was  lowering 
upon  her,  the  more  I  felt  ashamed  of  proposals  made 
to  me  by  her  most  implacable  enemy. 

And  yet  my  first  protector  addressed  me  personally 
in  the  name  of  the  country  in  danger.  France  had 
more  claim  upon  me  than  an  Empress  whose  dangers 
came,  after  all,  from  her  fault  or  that  of  her  husband. 
Was  I  to  imitate  the  attitude  of  the  officials  I  saw 
around  me  ?  Or  was  I  to  turn  to  whence  the  wind  blew 
that  would  strike  down  the  master  and  follow  its  cur- 
rent with  damnable  ambition  ? 

In  this  perplexity  I  resolved  to  go  and  see  Mme. 

X ,  whose  position,  I  thought,  would  be  as  difficult 

as  mine.  I  would  get  her  ideas,  though  quite  deter- 
mined not  to  tell  her  of  the  proposals  of  M.  Thiers, 
whom  she  execrated.  I  would  take  counsel  with  her  to 
enlighten  my  patriotism ;  I  would  find  out  if  her  van- 
quished party  had  risen  to  the  height  of  its  misfortunes, 
and  whether  my  duty  ought  still  to  chain  me  to  a  power 
so  near  to  its  fall. 

I  found  Mme.  X in  her  house  at  Auteuil.  She 


286  MEMOIRS   OF 

was  much  excited,  very  busy,  very  nervous ;  when  she 
saw  me,  standing  among  piles  of  furniture  in  her 
vestibule,  she  scarcely  bowed  to  me.  Accustomed  to 
read  countenances,  I  saw  on  hers  that  my  presence 
was  very  inopportune  to  her;  she  remembered  my 
beginnings  and  how  she  had  always  flaired  me  as  an 
Orleanist. 

"  Oh !  it  is  you,  is  it  ? "  she  said  with  a  haughty  air ; 
"-you  here  at  such  a  moment !  Politics  must  leave  you 
plenty  of  leisure  if  you  can  find  time  to  come  out  here, 
especially  when  any  one  who  belongs  to  the  Chateau 
must  be  a  very  dangerous  acquaintance  for  you  and 
your  friends." 

I  did  not  need  the  end  of  her  sentence  to  make  me 
understand  her  ill  humoun 

"  My  dear  friend,"  I  said,  "  it  is  because  I  foresee  the 
dangers  which  threaten  you  in  the  camp  to  which  you 
so  charitably  consign  me  that  I  have  come  to  see 
you  and  find  a  way  to  avoid  them." 

"  You  are  very  good,"  she  said,  taking  me  into  the 
salon  and  deigning  to  give  up  attending  to  her  furni- 
ture ;  "  you  are  very  good.  But  permit  me  only  half  to 
believe  you.  You  have  come,  have  you  not,  to  make 
yourself  quite  sure  of  the  coming  triumph  of  your 
friends  1  to  make  certain  that  the  Empire  is,  as  I  told 
you  six  months  ago  it  would  be, — fichu^  archi-fichu! 
Well,  be  sure  of  it !  You  see  I  am  packing  up  to  go. 
I  don't  intend  to  await  Prussian  bayonets,  or  the  return 
of  your  avengers  of  December  — " 

"  But,"  I  interrupted,  for  I  did  not  think  the  Empire 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  287 

had  quite  come  to  that ;  at  least  not  in  the  minds  of  its 
most  ardent  supporters ;  "  but  the  Empress  is  still  at 
the  Tuileries ;  she  is  guarded  there  by  General  Tro- 
chu." 

"The  Empress  will  depart,  just  as  I  do.  General 
Trochu  will  go  over  to  his  new  sovereign,  the  Repub- 
lic —  that  good  wet-nurse  for  embryo  pretenders  !  " 

"  You  are  in  a  very  bad  humour,"  I  said ;  "  it  was  not 
thus  that  I  knew  you  in  the  olden  time  when  we 
mutually  helped  each  other.'* 

"  Well,"  she  retorted  in  a  milder  though  still  embit- 
tered tone,  "  you  don't  need  my  help  any  longer,  as 
I  shall  never  belong  to  the  government  that  is  about 
to  be  born.  You  ought  even  to  forget  my  friendship, 
or  it  will  injure  you  with  Thiers." 

"  Oh ! "  I  exclaimed,  "  how  can  you  misunderstand 
me  in  that  way  ? " 

"  I  don't  blame  you,"  she  said;  "  I  blame  no  one  but 
the  Emperor.  Why  did  he  make  war  ?  He  had  only 
to  let  himself  die  tranquilly  without  going  after  jfimile 
Ollivier !  He  had  only  to  keep  his  power,  his  authority, 
without  trying  to  break  it,  like  a  child  with  a  plaything 
he  has  played  with  too  long!  Ha!  he  has  broken 
it  —  that  plaything  so  splendidly  made  by  Morny, 
Espinasse,  Billault,  and  Rouher  —  broken  it  just  to  see 
what  was  inside  of  it !  Well,  he  knows  now  what  has 
come  out  of  it  —  Ollivier,  war,  defeat ;  presently  it  will 
be  Thiers  and  revolution ;  after  Thiers  will  come  Gam- 
betta,  Rochefort,  and  —  I  don't  know  who !  But  after 
war,   after    revolution,    the    Empire   will    return    to 


288  MEMOIRS   OF 

play  its  old  game  with  new  trump-cards.  Then,  you 
Orleanists,  then  we'll  attend  to  you  !  As  for  me,  good- 
bye, I  'm  off,  awaiting  better  days." 

"  Where  are  you  going  ? "  I  said,  provoked  because 
I  saw  I  could  not  get  a  sensible  word  out  of  her. 

"  How  do  I  know } "  she  answered  angrily.  *'  I  am 
getting  out  of  Paris  in  the  first  place  because  Paris, 
whatever  happens,  left  to  itself  will  become  a  fur- 
nace." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  you  are  flying  into  the  face  of  inva- 
sion. The  Prussians  are  advancing  from  all  points  along 
the  frontier.  Another  defeat  and  the  million  of  Ger- 
mans who  now  surround  the  Ardennes  will  turn  Metz 
and  march  on  Paris." 

"  Well,  what  then .? "  she  said,  giving  me  a  sarcastic 
look. 

"  What  then  ?  Why  you  will  have  everything  to  fear 
if  you  fall  into  their  hands." 

"  How  young  you  are  still ! "  she  cried,  shrugging  her 
shoulders.  "  Do  you  think  that  danger  exists  for  me .? 
If  I  desert  Paris  which  is  deserting  us,  I  am  only  going 
to  Ville  d'Avray  where  I  possess  a  property  I  want  to 
save  from  the  coming  disasters.  They  say  that  Prus- 
sians only  pillage  and  burn  empty  houses.  They  are 
said  to  be  very  courteous  to  those  who  do  them  the 
honours  of  their  house.  Now  for  my  own  sake  and 
the  interests  of  others,  that 's  the  course  I  mean  to  take, 
and  I  shall  take  it." 

"  Do  you  think  that  patriotic  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  I  don't  know  anything  about  that,"  she  retorted. 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  289 

"  What  I  do  know  is  that  Thiers  and  his  consorts  will 
be  vanquished  after  the  revolution  as  we  are  vanquished 
to-day." 

"You  talk  as  if  the  Empire  were  already  in  the 
dust." 

"  It  will  be  to-morrow ! "  she  exclaimed. 

"  No,  for  there  is  another  battle  to  be  fought  between 
McMahon's  army  and  the  Prussians.  We  are  not  yet 
vanquished ! " 

"We  are — and  you  know  it!"  she  cried.  "And 
when  Prussia  by  a  final  victory  justifies  Thiers,  who 
has  never  ceased  to  predict  our  defeat  in  the  Chamber, 
and  opens  the  doors  of  the  Tuileries,  you  think  per- 
haps it  is  you  —  you  Orleanists  — who  will  profit  by  our 
defeat.    I  tell  you  no !  no !  " 

"  Why  not  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Why  not  ?  because  we  Bonapartists  will  return." 

"  On  the  Prussian  gun-carriages  ? " 

"  Don't  talk  nonsense,"  she  replied.  "  You  know  very 
well  that  a  nation,  whether  she  wills  it  or  does  not  will 
it,  belongs  to  her  conqueror.  Well,  we  Bonapartists, 
more  conquered  by  you  than  by  the  Prussians,  we  shall 
say  what  we  like  to  win  back  the  public  opinion  you 
have  taken  from  us.  We  shall  say  that  if  it  had  not 
been  for  the  revolution  Europe  would  have  intervened; 
we  shall  say  that  the  legal  government  issuing  twice 
from  the  suffrages  of  the  people  was  not  consulted  as 
to  continuing  the  war !  Then  in  presence  of  the  enemy, 
who  will  have  become  much  more  yours  than  ours,  we 
shall  demand  an  appeal  to  the  people." 


290  MEMOIRS   OF 

"But,"  I  cried  out  indignantly,  "that  will  be  civil 
war  in  the  midst  of  invasion !  It  would  be  a  crime. 
Suppose  France  should  succumb?" 

"  Ha !  my  dear  man,"  she  cried,  pushing  me  on  to  the 
veranda  piled  up  with  furniture ;  "  you  are  getting  tire- 
some, stupid,  with  your  worn-out  phrases !  Where  do 
you  come  from  ?  What  is  it,  the  France  you  talk  of  ? 
Does  a  woman  —  a  woman  of  my  profession  —  have 
a  country  ?  She  has  a  master ;  and  mine  is  the  Empire 
which  I  serve,  loyally,  by  all  the  means  in  my  power. 
That  is  why  you  see  me  on  the  point  of  quitting  Paris 
—  the  Empress  also.  By  the  way  your  friends  and  the 
Prussians  are  driving  things,  I  have  scarcely  time  to 
pack  my  trunks.  So,  good-bye,  my  dear  Claude,  may  we 
meet  again  in  better  days  —  you  will  find  me  then  as 
ready  to  serve  you  as  I  have  been  in  the  past." 

I  own  I  was  as  glad  to  leave  her  as  she  was  to  be  rid 
of  me.    I  was  horror-struck  at  the  profession  of  faith  of 

Mme.  X ,  who,  seeing  her  fortune  and  that  of  her 

masters  crumbling  away,  suddenly  unmasked  herself 
before  me.  In  spite  of  her  intelligence,  her  energy,  she 
appeared  to  me  such  as  I  would  fain  not  have  seen  her  — 
as  a  cynical  woman. 

My  mind  was  made  up.  On  the  day  when  Paris  heard 
of  the  defeat  at  Sedan,  I  left  the  Prefecture;  not  to 
abandon  it  disguised  as  a  cook  like  my  Prefect,  but 
to  answer  the  note  of  M.  Thiers.  That  morning  I  had 
received  a  letter  from  Bagasse.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  I  had  left  at  Verdun  the  police  escort  that  accom- 
panied the  baggage-train  of  His  Majesty.   Thanks  to 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  291 

that  escort,  I  was  one  of  the  first  in  Paris  to  know  of  the 
rout  of  our  army. 

All  the  officers  of  the  Prefecture  were  in  such  disorder 
by  this  time  that  I  was  obliged  to  take  upon  myself  per- 
sonally the  authority  to  make  the  various  police  posts, 
within  and  without,  attend  to  their  functions.  My  chiefs 
no  longer  attended  to  anything  but  their  own  affairs. 
On  the  eve  of  the  great  overthrow,  I  found  myself 
almost  alone  in  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  the  Prefect 
of  Police.  I  had  even  to  examine  the  correspondence 
in  order  to  keep  up  between  the  Prefecture  and  the 
Ministry  of  the  Interior  the  necessary  administrative 
relations,  which  were  certainly  not  within  my  province. 

But  on  the  evening  before  September  4,  no  one  was 
at  his  post;  it  is  absolutely  true  that  no  one  had 
awaited  the  downfall. 

As  the  police  had  played  a  great  role  with  the  army, 
I  was  informed  almost  daily  by  Bagasse  or  my  other 
agents  of  what  was  happening  on  the  Meuse,  in  the 
Ardennes,  and  even  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  I  was 
as  fully  informed  about  the  affairs  of  the  war  as  the 
Minister  himself.  I  had  no  difficulty,  alas !  in  detecting 
the  lying  news  with  which  the  Parisians  were  fooled,  in 
order  to  maintain,  in  the  name  of  their  patriotism,  the 
Empress-Regent  in  the  Tuileries.  I  was  thus  the  first 
to  hear  of  the  disaster  of  Sedan  from  Bagasse  and  the 
Requin,  who  had  not  ceased  to  accompany  the  Emperor 
from  Metz  to  Verdun  (where  I  left  them)  and  from 
Verdun  to  Sedan. 

When  Bagasse  and  the  escort  started  from  Verdun 


292  MEMOIRS   OF 

with  the  state-carriages,  the  household  suite,  the  steno- 
graphers, the  cooks,  the  kitchen  utensils,  etc.,  of  His 
Majesty,  they  went  through  dangers  quite  as  serious 
as  those  I  had  shared  with  them  after  Forbach.  This 
time  it  was  not  only  against  the  enemy  that  my  men 
had  to  take  precautions ;  they  were  needed  against 
Frenchmen.  Seeing  the  imperial  train  about  to  start 
with  the  fleeing  sovereign,  some  of  the  soldiers  who 
had  fought  at  Wissembourg,  heeding  only  their  rage 
and  their  despair,  aimed  their  rifles  at  the  Emperor. 
Bagasse  wrote  me  as  follows  : 

"  If  an  officer  who  was  on  the  train  had  not  sprung 
off  with  his  breast  against  the  muzzles  that  were  aimed 
at  the  Emperor,  it  would  have  been  all  up  with  him. 
*  Soldiers!'  cried  the  officer;  'you  are  unhappy  men, 
but  do  not  be  murderers.' " 

Three  days  later  than  this  letter  from  Bagasse  I  re- 
ceived another  from  him,  dated  Sedan.  It  announced 
a  new  retreat  of  the  army.  It  also  informed  me  that 
the  fifty  cars  of  His  Majesty's  baggage-train  had  been 
brought  into  Sedan  without  much  damage,  but  that 
the  army  had  met  a  different  fate.  His  next  letter 
announced  the  capitulation  and  the  capture  of  him  who 
was  henceforth  no  longer  an  emperor. 

I  confess  that  when  I  thus  learned,  with  many  of  its 
details,  this  frightful  catastrophe,  I  had  a  species  of 
vertigo.  Nevertheless,  the  solitude  and  isolation  in 
which  my  chiefs  at  the  Prefecture  had  left  me  showed 
me  clearly  my  duty.  In  this  supreme  hour,  which 
sounded  the  death-knell  of  the  imperial  dynasty,  France 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  293 

could  not  be  kept  on  the  second  line.  I  knew  too  well 
the  just  grievances  of  the  Opposition,  the  patriotism 
of  the  Parisian  population,  not  to  put  myself  defin- 
itively on  the  side  of  the  outraged  nation.  I  decided 
then  to  go  and  see  M.  Thiers. 

I  remember,  as  if  it  were  yesterday,  the  short  inter- 
view that  I  had  with  the  old  politician  when  I  went 
to  him  at  the  moment  I  had  received  news  of  our 
great  disaster.  Had  he  heard  of  it  ?  I  did  not  know. 
But  the  extreme  agitation  in  which  I  found  him,  the 
leader  of  the  Opposition,  made  me  suppose  that  he 
had  heard  it. 

I  entered  the  house  in  the  rue  Saint-Georges,  the 
broken  windows  of  which,  broken  by  the  "patriotic 
manifestation  "  of  the  friends  of  the  Empire  against  the 
adversaries  of  the  war,  were  scarcely  mended.  I  had 
no  sooner  sent  in  my  name  than  Mo  Thiers,  his  face 
pale,  his  features  convulsed,  came  eagerly  to  me  and 
took  me  into  his  private  roomo 

"  My  dear  Claude,"  he  said  in  a  clear,  vibrant,  yet 
shaking  voice,  "  I  wrote  to  you  under  the  expectation 
of  grave  events  which  might  put  the  country  in  danger. 
To-day,  since  I  wrote  to  you,  events  so  terrible  have 
happened  that  I  seem  to  have  lost  my  head.  We  have 
a  session  of  the  Chamber  to-night.  I  don't  know  what 
will  take  place ;  I  dare  not  even  think  about  it.  As  we 
have  long  known  you  —  as  I  know  above  all  your  patri- 
otism, your  loyalty —  I  wished  —  I  wish  still,  to  ask  you 
whether,  in  the  horrible  catastrophe  before  us,  you  will 
be  on  the  side  of  the  Emperor  or  on  the  side  of  France  ?  " 


294  MEMOIRS   OF 

"  My  answer,"  I  said  solemnly, "  is  given.  Monsieur 
Theirs,  by  the  fact  that  you  see  me  here." 

"Thank  you  !"  he  said,  pressing  my  hand  warmly; 
"  you  are  a  good  Frenchman." 

"  And  now,"  I  said,  "  what  am  I  to  do  ?  " 

"  Remain  at  your  post  and  await  events." 

"  But,"  I  objected,  "  suppose  the  revolution  turns  me 
out.?" 

"  It  will  not  turn  you  out." 

"  Suppose  my  present  chiefs  compel  me  once  more 
to  act  against  you  ?  " 

"Your  chiefs  will  not  dare  to  give  you  an  order 
against  me;  I'll  answer  for  that  —  if  indeed  you  have 
those  same  chiefs  to-morrow  !  " 

"  Then  what  will  be  my  situation  ? " 

"  That  of  waiting  for  your  new  Prefect." 

"  Then,"  I  cried  out  in  surprise,  "  then  you  know  all. 
Monsieur  Thiers }  ** 

"  All ! "  he  answered,  waving  his  arm  with  a  gesture 
of  despair,  and  wiping  under  his  spectacles  the  tears 
that  rolled  from  his  eyes,  while  his  voice  could  not 
restrain  a  sob.  "  All  —  alas ! " 

The  diplomatist  had  disappeared:  I  saw  only  the 
patriot,  shaken,  agitated  before  the  sorrows  of  his 
country. 

"  Go ! "  he  said,  pushing  me  hastily  by  the  shoulders ; 
"  au  revozr,  my  poor  friend ;  I  count  on  you  to  keep 
order  in  Paris,  while  those  who  have  ruined  the  country 
abandon  it  on  the  brink  of  the  abyss  to  which  they  have 
dragged  it." 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  295 

This  interview  between  M.  Thiers  and  me  took  place 
on  the  evening  of  the  3d  of  September,  when  the  Minis- 
ter of  War,  after  the  news  of  the  capture  of  Napoleon 
III  had  been  transmitted  to  him  by  the  Empress,  had 
just  convoked  the  Chamber  to  tell  it  that  the  army  had 
capitulated,  and  that  the  Emperor  was  a  prisoner. 

We  all  know  what  happened  on  the  announcement 
of  that  terrible  news.  Jules  Favre  answered  the  Minis- 
ter, the  Comte  de  Palikao,  by  declaring: 

"  Louis  Napoleon  Bonaparte  and  his  dynasty  are 
deprived  of  the  powers  conferred  on  them  by  the 
Constitution.  ..." 

Jules  Favre  ended  by  saying  slowly  to  the  friends 
of  the  Empire,  who  listened  to  him  as  condemned  men 
listen  to  their  death-sentence : 

"  To-morrow  —  or  rather  to-day,  Sunday,  at  midday, 
we  shall  have  the  honour  to  state  publicly  the  impera- 
tive, the  absolute  reason  which  commands  all  patriots 
to  adopt  that  declaration." 

When  I  left  M.  Thiers  that  evening  and  walked 
through  the  streets,  I  perceived  that  Paris,  long  secretly 
worked  upon  by  the  permanent  leaders  of  revolution, 
was  already  in  possession  of  the  dreadful  news.  An 
enormous  crowd  was  circulating  along  the  line  of  the 
boulevards,  whispering  at  each  corner.  Manifestations 
of  sorrow  were  universal,  coupled  with  deep,  growling 
anger.  It  seemed  to  me  then,  just  as  it  did  in  1848,  and 
in  the  days  of  June,  that  the  people  were  waiting  for 
the  v/ord  of  command,  which  the  leaders  of  the  revolu- 
tion dared  not  give  as  yet  while  the  country  mourned. 


296  MEMOIRS   OF 

I  heard,  in  all  the  groups,  voices  that  restrained  the 
furious  ones ;  sad  voices  saying : 

"  Be  calm.  Not  to-night.  To-morrow !  Then  we  shall 
see  !  we  shall  see ! " 

When  I  reached  the  Prefecture,  I  was  immediately 
summoned  by  the  Chief  of  the  Political  Police,  M.  La- 
grange. It  was  the  last  time  that  I  saw  him.  He 
received  me  in  the  antechamber  of  his  office.  He  was 
dressed  as  a  traveller  prepared  to  take  a  railway 
journey.  He  said  to  me : 

"  Monsieur  Claude,  you  know  what  has  happened. 
At  midnight  there  is  a  special  session  of  the  Chamber 
to  announce  the  capture  of  His  Majesty.  Our  Prefect, 
by  the  advice  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior,  has  taken 
all  necessary  precautions  that  order  be  not  disturbed. 
Neither  the  Prefect,  nor  the  Minister,  nor  I,  can  have 
any  effect  on  the  population,  for  I  know  very  well  that 
to-morrow  all  Paris  will  be  beside  itself  and  outside  of 
the  law.  Men  like  us,  faithful  under  misfortune,  will 
be  suspected.  All  we  can  do  is  to  group  ourselves 
at  the  Tuileries,  with  General  Trochu  around  the 
Empress-Regent.  In  the  name  of  order,  you  must 
act,  Monsieur  Claude, — you  who  have  nothing  to  fear, 
as  I  myself  would  act,  —  in  the  interests  of  the  popula- 
tion. See  that  order  reigns  in  Paris.  Give  your  whole 
care  to  that ;  as  for  us,  we  should  only  aggravate  the 
situation." 

Before  I  could  say  a  single  word  in  reply  M.  La- 
grange had  left  me.  Under  the  grave  responsibility 
thus  suddenly  put  upon  me  I  wished  to  consult  my 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  297 

superiors.  I  went  up  to  the  offices  of  the  General  Di- 
rection of  the  Prefecture.  I  found  them  deserted.  It 
was  now  one  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  night  session 
of  the  Chamber  had  already  begun.  Jules  Favre  had 
proclaimed  the  overthrow  of  the  Empire. 

During  the  first  shock  of  indignation  that  ran  through 
Paris  from  midnight  to  midday  and  transformed,  without 
the  shedding  of  a  single  drop  of  blood,  Imperial  France 
into  Republican  France,  I  did  not  quit  the  Prefecture. 
Trusting  to  the  promise  of  M.  Thiers,  and  faithful  to 
the  request  of  my  former  superior,  I  remained  at  my 
post,  awaiting  events,  to  ward  off  violence  from  what- 
ever quarter  it  came.  I  ought  to  say,  to  the  equal  hon- 
our of  the  vanquished  party  and  the  triumphant  party, 
that  I  simply  had  to  continue  under  the  new  power  the 
service  laid  upon  me  by  the  departing  regime. 

After  the  morning  session  of  the  last  Assembly  of 
the  Empire,  which  ended  as  a  Republican  Assembly, 
I  received  an  anonymous  note,  the  handwriting  of 
which  I  knew  perfectly  well.  It  announced  to  me  the 
coming  of  a  new  Prefect  whose  orders  I  was  to  obey. 
This  was  the  Comte  de  Keratry,  who,  in  the  Assembly, 
had  just  interpellated  the  fallen  power  on  the  military 
arrangements  made  against  the  people  of  Paris  —  an 
interpellation  that  forced  General  Trochu  to  abandon 
his  post  at  the  Tuileries  and  go  to  the  Hotel  de  Ville. 
As  a  reward  for  M.  de  Keratry's  action  the  new  mixed 
government  (improvised  in  the  offices  of  the  Legislative 
Chamber)  appointed  him  on  the  spot  as  Prefect  of 
Police. 


298  MEMOIRS   OF 

While  awaiting  the  orders  of  the  new  Prefect  thus 
appointed  by  the  Republican  Government,  —  or,  as  it 
was  then  called,  the  Government  of  National  Defence, 
—  I  continued  to  execute  the  orders  of  my  former 
chiefs.  In  sending,  under  command  of  certain  officers, 
eight  hundred  policemen  to  guard  the  approaches  to 
the  Chamber,  I  was  careful  to  select  as  their  leaders 
men  who  had  not  belonged  to  the  former  political 
brigade.  I  also  watched  that  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Prefecture  should  have  a  tranquil  air,  as  if  nothing 
abnormal  were  taking  place  in  Paris. 

I  was  notified  that  the  National  Guard  had  been 
called  out  by  the  Deputies  of  the  Left.  The  total 
absence  of  my  late  chiefs  showed  me  plainly  that  the 
evolution  into  a  new  government  was  an  accomplished 
fact,  and  that  the  question  was  much  more  protection 
against  its  too  ardent  disciples  than  precautions  against 
the  fallen  Empire.  I  had  too  much  experience  in  revo- 
lutions not  to  act  under  the  directions  of  the  anony- 
mous note  which  had  come  to  me  from  the  transformed 
Chamber. 

At  that  crucial  moment,  the  Chamber  called  up  all 
the  men  of  the  Revolution  of  1848.  Jules  Favre,  Thiers, 
Cremieux,  fitienne  Arago,  and  Garnier-Pages  became 
a  tutelary  and  temporising  power  against  the  impatient 
spirits  of  Belleville.  To  the  younger  ones — Gambetta, 
Rochefort,  etc. — were  given  only  secondary  roles.  It 
now  became  a  vital  question  of  how  to  unite,  in  the 
name  of  military  fraternity,  the  army  under  Trochu, 
the  police  under    Keratry,  and    the   National  Guard 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  299 

against  the  soldiers  of  Flourens  and  Blanqui,  against 
the  Republicans  of  Belleville  and  La  Villette. 

The  Revolution  of  September  4,  1871,  was  accom- 
plished without  a  shot  being  exchanged,  because  the 
most  perfect  order  never  ceased  to  be  maintained  be- 
tween the  people,  half-stunned  by  the  frightful  defeat, 
and  the  members  of  the  legislative  body.  It  is  true 
that  the  police  whom  I  had  sent  under  the  orders  of 
my  former  chiefs,  and  the  citizens,  sent  by  order  of 
their  "centurions,"  eyed  each  other  suspiciously;  but 
when  the  news  spread  that  the  National  Guard  had 
been  called  out  to  protect  the  revolution,  and  when  the 
populace  saw  advancing  among  them  none  but  the 
deputies  who  had  voted  against  the  war,  the  crowd 
calmed  down.  And  it  remained  calm  because  not  a 
minister,  not  a  deputy  of  the  imperialist  majority  showed 
himself  on  the  Place  de  la  Concorde. 

When  the  National  Guard  arrived,  it  was  headed  by 
a  carriage  in  which  were  three  deputies  in  uniform  in 
order  to  encourage  the  fraternizing  of  the  civil  guard 
with  the  military  guard  under  General  Trochu.  For 
a  moment  every  one  thought  there  would  be  fighting 
between  the  Nationals  and  the  Garde  de  Paris,  which 
was  stationed  at  the  end  of  the  bridge.  The  officer  in 
command  of  the  latter  seemed  to  hesitate.  Forty  thou- 
sand eyes  were  fixed  upon  him.  There  was  an  instant  of 
terrible  suspense.  Then  the  officer,  suddenly  turning 
his  eyes  to  the  dome  of  the  Tuileries,  saw  that  the  flag 
no  longer  floated  from  it  and  called  to  his  men : 
"  Sheathe  sabres  ! "  and  the  danger  was  over. 


300  MEMOIRS   OF 

During  this  time,  the  Prefecture  was  not  forgotten. 
I  had  not  left  it  all  night.  After  midday  a  company  of 
the  third  arrondissement  arrived,  led  by  the  Comte  de 
Keratry.  My  new  Prefect  came  to  take  possession  of  his 
post.  I  did  the  honours  in  receiving  him.  He  greeted 
me  with  great  cordiality,  the  secret  of  which  came  from 
my  interview  the  night  before  with  M.  Thiers.  It  was 
now  about  three  o'clock. 

As  soon  as  my  new  Prefect  had  taken  possession  of 
the  Prefecture,  his  first  care  was  to  affix  the  seals  in 
the  offices  of  the  late  Prefect  and  of  the  Chief  of  the 
Political  Division,  both  of  whom,  as  I  have  said,  had 
fled.  As  soon  as  this  ceremony  began,  I  was  struck, 
like  every  one  else,  with  the  disorder  that  reigned  in 
the  private  rooms;  a  disorder  that  explained  why,  dur- 
ing  the  last  two  days,  the  heads  of  the  administration 
at  the  Prefecture  had  received  no  one,  and  why  all 
the  chimneys  of  the  Prefecture  had  smoked. 

Traces  of  destruction,  or  of  abduction,  were  every- 
where visible.  The  book-cases,  the  closets,  the  drawers 
of  the  desks  and  writing-tables  were  empty.  On  the 
shelves  were  fifty  or  more  boxes,  from  which  all  docu- 
ments had  been  taken.  On  the  tables  lay,  pell-mell,  the 
registers  and  record-books,  from  which  leaves  had  been 
torn.  The  stoves,  the  fireplaces,  were  choked  with 
papers  either  reduced  to  ashes  or  blackened  by  flames. 
For  the  last  few  days  my  chiefs,  preparatory  to  depart- 
ure, had  destroyed  everything  that  could  compromise 
the  servants  of  the  Empire. 

I  now  received  from  my  new  Prefect  an  order  to  go 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  301 

to  the  Tuileries,  which  the  Empress  had  left  that  morn- 
ing. She  departed,  as  all  other  fallen  sovereigns  of  that 
palace  had  departed,  at  the  moment  when  she  least  ex- 
pected to  go.  She  went  because,  wishing  herself  to  resist 
the  revolution,  she  found  none  around  her  but  men  who, 
from  the  least  to  the  greatest,  had  all  lost  their  heads. 
As  she  left  the  palace  she  said,  justly  and  bitterly : 

"No  one  should  be  unfortunate  in  France,  where 
every  one  abandons  them ! " 

I  could  now  look  coolly  at  the  situation  of  the 
new  government  which  I  was  about  to  serve.  The  order 
I  had  received  to  go  to  the  Tuileries,  invaded  by  the 
people,  showed  me  plainly  the  role  I  was  expected 
to  play,  namely,  to  control  the  rear-guard  of  the  revo- 
lution. 

Was  M.  Thiers  playing  at  this  moment,  in  1870,  the 
part  that  Lamartine  had  played  in  1 848  ? 

At  any  rate,  I,  former  servant  of  the  Empire,  had 
grown  in  importance  within  a  few  hours,  solely  because 
I  had  become  the  body-guard  of  the  leaders  improvised 
on  the  4th  of  September.  The  Comte  de  Keratry  sent 
me  to  the  Tuileries  with  a  company  of  resolute  men, 
old  soldiers  of  the  last  reign,  so  that  the  friends  of 
Flourens  and  Blanqui  should  not  enthrone  themselves 
in  the  Tuileries  and  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  as  they  had 
already  done  at  the  Palais  Bourbon.  The  Parisian 
bourgeoisie  had  good  reason  to  be  afraid  of  the  revolu- 
tion (an  act  of  justice,  however),  because  behind  it  was 
the  Red  Spectre,  and  behind  the  Red  Spectre  was  the 
Prussian  helmet ! 


302  MONSIEUR   CLAUDE 

And  who,  and  what  were  the  men  who  put  themselves 
at  the  head  of  the  great  heroic  movement  of  Paris, 
stirred  by  patriotism  ?  Jules  Favre,  Cremieux,  Etienne 
Arago,  Garnier-Pages  —  the  Ghosts  of  the  Revolution 
of  1848! 

What  was  I,  myself,  in  this  great  popular  movement  ? 
A  faithful  servant,  a  sincere  patriot,  it  is  true,  but  one 
who,  by  reason  of  my  age,  my  past,  and  my  convictions, 
was  thrust  into  a  path  foreign  to  my  nature  and  to  my 
convictions. 

Alas !  the  revolution,  which  had  caused  a  phantom 
of  power  to  vanish,  was  led  by  none  but  Phantoms! 
Meanwhile,  the  Prussians  were  advancing ! 


CHAPTER  XX 

INSTALLATION   OF  THE   GOVERNMENT 
OF   SEPTEMBER  4 


WHEN  I  reached  the  Tuileries  with  my 
agents  I  found  I  had  no  police  work  to  do 
in  protecting  the  palace  from  invaders.  The 
dramatic  author,  Sardou,  had  taken  that  care  upon 
himself.  When  I  entered  the  garden  filled  with  an 
immense  crowd  I  heard,  mingled  with  cries  of  Vive  la 
Republique  I  shouts  of  Vive  Sardou  !  I  own  that  in  the 
gravity  of  events,  in  the  terrible  situation  of  France, 
the  apparition  of  this  dramatic  writer  seemed  to  me 
a  little  anomalous ;  it  gave  me  a  sad  sense  of  the  levity 
of  Parisians  who  carry  the  burlesque  even  into  solemn 
drama, — for  the  Parisian  amuses  himself,  and  would 
forever  amuse  himself,  had  he  his  feet  in  blood !  Did 
he  not  dance  around  the  guillotine  of  '93  1  Did  he  not 
give  concerts  in  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries  the  night 
before  the  day  on  which  the  Commune  burned  it  in 
1871  ? 

The  crowd  applauded  the  dramatic  author  who,  they 
said,  had  led  with  bared  head  and  naked  breast  the 
National  Guard  against  the  Imperial  Guard.  Possibly 
they  applauded,  because  the  author's  profile  bore  like- 


304  MEMOIRS   OF 

ness  to  the  Bonaparte  of  the  great  days,  and  the  sight 
came  to  them  at  the  moment  when  they  were  driving 
from  the  Tuileries  the  man  who  was  but  a  caricature 
of  the  great  Bonaparte. 

However  that  may  have  been,  Sardou's  initiative  in 
occupying  the  Tuileries  the  instant  the  Empress  left  it 
was  a  good  thing.  He,  who  did  not  aspire  to  enter  the 
Government,  was  prompted  to  play  the  part  of  hero  on 
the  barricades  by  the  same  object  that  I  had,  namely, 
to  protect  the  Tuileries  from  thieves  and  incendiaries. 
His  act  was,  as  I  suppose,  a  dramatic  scene  which  that 
witty  mind  thought  opportune  and  useful  to  introduce 
into  the  great  drama  of  Paris.  Sardou  transformed 
himself  on  this  occasion  into  a  lightning-rod.  His 
presence  sufficed  to  ward  off  the  thunderbolt  that 
threatened  the  old  palace  of  our  kings  —  the  burning 
of  the  Tuileries  was  postponed  for  eight  months ! 

When  I  entered  the  apartments  of  the  palace,  already 
guarded  by  the  National  Guard,  I  found  them  exactly 
as  the  Empress  had  left  them  an  hour  or  two  earlier. 
Like  King  Louis-Philippe,  she  did  not  abandon  the 
Tuileries  until  compelled  to  do  so  by  those  who  sur- 
rounded her.  Like  the  ex-King  she  fled  at  her  breakfast 
hour,  but  not  until  her  regency  was  no  longer  a  pos- 
sible thing.  I  saw  the  table  as  she  had  left  it,  the  egg- 
cup  overturned  which  had  contained  the  boiled  egg  of 
her  simple  meal. 

When  she  left  the  Tuileries  she  was  still  surrounded 
by  a  few  faithful  friends,  and  by  two  of  the  foreign 
ambassadors,  Prince  Metternich  and  the  Chevalier  di 


EMPRESS    EUGENIE 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  305 

Nigra.  She  did  not  decide  to  leave  the  palace  to  "  the 
people  "  until  the  Chief  of  the  Political  Police,  who 
had  abandoned  his  post,  came  to  warn  her  that "  it  was 
time  to  fly." 

Even  then  she  did  not  go  till  the  National  Guards, 
led  by  Sardou,  entered  the  palace  in  spite  of  the  efforts 
of  General  Mellinet  to  moderate  if  not  to  repulse  them. 
Then  it  was  that  the  Empress  said  the  words  I  have 
already  quoted  :  "  Let  no  one  be  unfortunate  in  France, 
for  every  one  abandons  them  !  " 

The  installation  of  the  new  Government  of  Septem- 
ber 4  was  done  peacefully  and  amiably.  The  Comte 
de  Keratry  came  to  the  Prefecture  with  only  one  clerk. 
The  4th  of  September  was  a  day  of  hand-shaking  — 
I  do  not  say  that  it  was  not  a  ''  day  of  dupes  "  as  well. 
For  the  future  Commune,  which  had  prepared  it,  and 
the  imperialists,  who  had  dreaded  it,  were  both  thinking, 
from  that  day  forth,  of  a  revenge  for  what  they  each 
called  a  "  deception  "  and  a  "  usurpation  of  power." 

The  revolution  of  September  4  was  (on  a  different 
stage)  the  same  deception,  the  same  "  surprise,"  as  that 
of  February,  1848;  each  put  off,  for  a  time,  a  terrible 
revolution.  The  days  of  June,  1848,  have  for  their  pend- 
ant the  Bloody  Week  [of  the  Commune].' 

But  the  clouds  would  not  be  long,  I  knew,  in  gather- 
ing in  the  still  clear  sky  of  the  new  Republic,  acclaimed 

1  It  is  surprising  that  so  little  is  remembered  and  said  about  the  Com- 
mune and  its  horrors.  It  was  short,  to  be  sure ;  but  the  atrocities  and 
massacres  then  committed  —  committed  in  our  own  day  —  were  even  more 
infernal  than  those  of  the  great  Revolution.  An  account  of  them  can  be 
found  in  M.  Maxime  Du  Camp's  Paris  under  the  Commune.  —  [Tr.] 


3o6  MEMOIRS   OF 

by  the  French  people  while  the  Prussians  were  invad- 
ing France!  M.  Thiers,  whom  I  saw  after  Septem- 
ber 4,  was  to  me  the  living  demonstration  of  what  I 
feared. 

But  what  of  that !  the  4th  of  September  was  to  the 
people  a  true  fete-day.  They  forgot,  in  the  joy  of  re- 
conquering their  liberty,  the  enemy  at  their  gates  pre- 
paring to  conquer  their  country.  They  surrounded 
the  Hotel  de  Ville,  eager  to  gaze  on  Henri  Rochefort, 
who,  like  the  other  prisoners  of  the  Empire,  was  borne 
there  in  triumph  to  form  part  of  the  new  Government. 
In  this  parliamentary  revolution,  Jules  Favre  was  the 
incarnation  of  the  vengeance  for  December,  '51; 
Rochefort  and  Gambetta  were  the  incarnation  of  social 
revenge. 

I  repeat,  there  was  wide  space  between  the  Govern- 
ment of  Jules  Favre,  Thiers,  Cremieux,  Arago,  Garnier- 
Pages,  Trochu,  etc.,  and  that  desired  by  the  last 
Elected  of  the  Opposition.  The  distance  between  them 
was  that  of  the  Capitol  from  the  Tarpeian  Rock,  and 
the  Revolution  of  Paris,  which  it  brought  about  at 
the  moment  of  the  invasion,  became  a  trump-card  in 
Bismarck's  hands. 

I  knew  too  well  the  self-interested  supporters  of 
the  Empire  to  believe  in  their  total  disappearance.  The 
hurricane  of  September  4  had  swept  them  out  of 
Paris  only  to  leave  them  on  the  frontiers  of  France, 
there  to  concert  together  and  await  the  moment  for 
their  return  to  the  capital.  I  had  known  too  well  the 
secret  springs   of  the  riots  of  June,  '48,  the  support 


MONSIEUR   CLAUDE  307 

given  in  England  to  the  Prince- Pretender,  not  to  fear 
that  Prussia,  hating  France,  would  make  a  volte-face 
in  favour  of  her  prisoner.  Would  it  not  be  for  Prussia 
an  easy  means  of  defeating  those  who  preferred  war  to 
the  death  rather  than  accept  a  degrading  peace  ?  As 

I  thought  of  these  things  the  words  of  Mme.  X 

came  back  to  me. 

What  consoled  me  personally  under  the  misfortunes 
of  my  country  and  the  reckless  joy  of  the  Parisians 
was  the  importance  I  had  gained  in  the  wholly  original 
situation  given  me  by  the  Revolution  of  September; 
a  temporising  revolution,  whose  serene  sky,  though 
even  then  hot  and  heavy,  was,  alas  !  the  forerunner  of 
a  double  tempest  —  the  Siege  and  the  Commune.  In 
this  calm  before  a  storm  I  had  grown  by  many  cubits. 
My  long  experience,  my  antecedents,  my  struggles 
against  the  occult  administration  of  the  Empire  were 
so  many  titles  of  recommendation  to  the  new  powers. 
Most  of  them,  M.  de.  Keratry  especially,  knew  the  ties 
that  bound  me  to  M.  Thiers,  whose  hand  had  guided 
the  coming  revolution  ever  since  the  Ollivier  Ministry 
began. 

From  the  day  of  the  installation  of  my  new  Pre- 
fect, I  did  all  that  in  me  lay  to  prove  to  him  that 
I  had  no  regrets  for  the  fallen  regime  —  fallen  far  more 
through  public  contempt  than  through  foreign  adver- 
saries. 

As  soon  as  the  Prefect  received  orders  from  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  to  set  at  liberty  the  political  prisoners  lately 
condemned  by  the  courts  of  justice,  I  hastened  to  exe- 


308  MEMOIRS   OF 

cute  those  commands  of  the  Government  of  National 
Defence.  It  certainly  was  a  curious  thing  for  me  and 
my  agents,  who  had  assisted  the  legal  officers  to  incar- 
cerate Megy,  Paschal  Grousset,  Razoua,  Trinquet, 
Rochefort,  and  others,  —  it  was  curious  for  us  to  open 
the  doors  of  their  prison,  we  who  had  locked  those 
doors  upon  them  a  few  months  earlier ! 

Strange  shifting  of  political  things,  which  brought 
me  to  the  fore  and  raised  me  only  to  make  my  ultimate 
fall  the  more  terrible !  It  was  written  above  that  I 
should  be,  to  the  end,  the  plaything  of  the  flux  and 
reflux  of  revolutions,  and  that  they  should  spare  me 
none  of  the  buffetings  of  their  violent  eddies. 

And  yet,  God  knows,  I  have  never  been  a  man  of 
politics ;  I  have  never  felt  other  hatreds  than  those  in- 
spired in  me  by  criminals  of  the  worst  species.  For  my 
merit,  my  only  merit,  has  been  to  discern  a  scoundrel 
at  a  glance  through  the  instinctive  aversion  he  inspired 
in  me,  whether  he  was  the  lowest  of  blackguards  or  the 
highest  of  princes. 

Shortly  after  September  4,  which  had  changed  no- 
thing at  the  Prefecture  except  by  substituting  a  Repub- 
lican Prefect  in  place  of  a  henchman  of  the  Empire,  I 
was  sent  for  by  the  active  and  indefatigable  M.  Thiers. 
I  went  at  once  to  his  house  in  the  rue  Saint-Georges, 
thinking  of  his  luck  and  that  of  his  friends,  which,  like 
mine,  alas!  came  from  the  disasters  of  France.  I  was 
therefore  much  surprised  to  find  him  as  peevish  and 
morose  as  he  had  been  sad  and  tearful  on  the  eve  of 
the  imperial  downfall. 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  309 

When  he  saw  me  he  frowned,  crossed  his  arms  on 
his  breast,  and  advanced  upon  me,  saying  in  his  clearest 
and  most  strident  voice : 

"  Ha !  Monsieur  Claude,  fine  things  you  are  doing ! " 

I  stood  aghast  and  open-mouthed.  For  a  moment 
I  did  not  know  what  answer  to  make.  Seeing  that,  he 
went  on,  smiling  bitterly : 

"  Pardon  me,  my  good  friend ;  it  is  not  you  I  in- 
criminate, it  is  your  chiefs.  You  —  you  are  nothing  but 
an  instrument  of  the  new  power." 

"  But,"  I  said,  "  am  I  not  now  with  the  chief  of  the 
new  Government } " 

"  Oh ! "  he  exclaimed,  shrugging  his  shoulders  and 
walking  up  and  down  with  all  the  activity  of  his  little 
legs.  "  Oh !  if  I  was  the  chief  of  those  blunderheads,  it 
is  not  I  who  would  have  ordered  you  to  let  loose  the 
political  prisoners  of  the  Empire !  At  the  moment  when 
Paris  has  n't  fifteen  days  before  her  to  prepare  to  receive 
the  Prussians,  the  Government  had  something  else  to 
do  than  think  about  the  martyrs  of  liberty  and  caress  all 
the  democratic  prejudices  of  the  people ! " 

At  these  words  my  mouth  opened  wider  than  ever. 
This  speech  of  M.  Thiers  bewildered  me  more  than  his 
rough  reception.  And  yet  I  began  to  understand  the 
ill  humour  of  my  illustrious  patron.  He  showed  me  its 
cause  as  soon  as  he  let  me  see  he  was  no  longer  master 
of  the  revolution  he  had  produced. 

For  M.  Thiers  throughout  his  whole  life  had  but  one 
engrossing  thought  —  to  govern  and  feel  himself  master 
of  all  things.    His  numerous  disappointments,  in  1848, 


3IO  MEMOIRS   OF 

in  185 1,  like  that  he  felt  at  this  moment  (after  having 
done  everything  to  grasp  the  power)  came  solely  from 
his  inordinate  desire  to  govern.  He  would  have  been 
willing  to  govern  on  a  volcano!  And  it  was  because 
he  could  not  act  as  he  pleased  over  the  crater  opened 
by  the  camarilla  of  Gambetta  that  he  had  to  govern, 
later,  at  Bordeaux  over  the  volcano  of  invasion,  and  at 
Versailles  over  the  volcano  of  the  Commune. 

"  Then,  Monsieur  Thiers,"  I  asked,  "  do  you  condemn 
me  because  I  opened  the  prison  doors  to  Rochefort,  to 
Megy,  to  — ?" 

"  I  don't  condemn  you,  not  you.  Monsieur  Claude,"  he 
replied,  with  a  negative  gesture  and  becoming  once  more 
good-humoured ;  "  I  condemn  those  who  made  you 
execute  such  orders.  You  are  an  arm;  you  are  not 
a  head.  When  men  wish,  like  your  chiefs,  to  be  at  the 
head  of  a  nation,  they  need  brains,  especially  at  such 
a  critical  moment  as  the  present  —  and  all  your  chiefs 
are  scatter-brains  ! " 

This  time  I  had  the  keynote  of  the  situation.  The 
illustrious  statesman,  who  had  served  as  reinforcement 
to  the  Republicans  during  the  Empire,  was  already  dis- 
trusted by  the  new  revolution.  The  men  of  1848,  like 
the  old  "  Five  "  of  the  Legislative  Chamber,  distrusted 
at  this  moment  the  former  Minister  of  Louis-Philippe, 
the  former  head  of  the  committee  of  the  rue  de  Poitiers, 
the  slighted  author  of  the  first  Napoleonic  constitution ! 
This  was  why  M.  Thiers  was  not  at  the  Hotel  de  Ville, 
whence  issued  the  decrees  that  made  the  various  admin- 
istrations act  under  the  impulsion  of  a  power  far  stronger 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  311 

than  that  which   merely  signed  the  acts  of  the  new 
Government. 

''Yes,"  continued  M.  Thiers,  taking  no  further  notice 
of  me,  and  resuming  his  habitual  petulance,  —  "yes, 
they  are  all  scatter-brains !  At  this  moment,  listen  to 
what  the  people  are  shouting  under  my  windows :  Vive  la 
Republique  !  Is  the  Republic  what  our  unhappy  nation 
ought  to  think  of  now  ?  No !  It  is  her  existence  and 
not  the  form  of  government  that  M.  Jules  Favre  or 
M.  Gambetta  may  prefer,  neither  of  which  will  be  satis- 
factory to  the  army,  which  does  n't  want  to  be  launched 
against  the  people  after  being  ground  to  powder  by 
the  Prussians  !  I  see  none  but  lawyers  in  the  new  Gov- 
ernment, where  soldiers  are  needed !  men  of  the  robe, 
forsooth,  where  we  want  men  of  the  sword.  Trochu 
is  as  tearful  as  Favre.  As  for  the  young  ones,  they 
are  nothing  but  little  pettifoggers;  they  think  they 
can  hold  a  sword  as  they  hold  a  paper-knife.  I  don't 
see  among  all  these  lawyers  who  think  themselves 
generals,  and  all  these  generals  who  talk  like  lawyers, 
a  single  statesman !  And  here  we  are  in  face  of  a  Bis- 
marck with  a  Moltke  behind  him  !  As  for  Rochefort 
and  those  others,  I  don't  speak  of  them ;  they  are 
nothing  but  flute-players !  They  don't  suspect  that  in 
parodying  the  men  of  the  Convention  they  insult  the 
past  and  compromise  the  future.  You  must  own,  my 
dear  Claude,  that  it  is  not  when  the  nation  is  invaded 
that  we  want  mountebanks  at  a  fair  !  The  Empire  fell 
before  public  contempt ;  that  sufficed.  My  colleagues 
would  not  listen  to  me  when  I  proposed  to  them  to 


312  MEMOIRS   OF 

govern,  in  the  absence  of  established  power,  under  the 
duty  of  presenting  a  compact  resistance  to  Germany. 
They  preferred  to  give  themselves  a  cockade  which 
divides  France  before  Germany — a  unit  to  destroy  us! 
Let  the  blame  fall  on  those  to  whom  it  belongs !  If  I 
were  not  a  Frenchman  I  would  wash  my  hands  of  the 
whole  concern  !  But  I  am  a  Frenchman.  And  so  here 
am  I,  forced,  at  seventy  years  of  age,  to  quit  France 
and  rush  to  all  the  Courts  of  Europe  to  induce  them 
to  pity  our  unhappy  fate  ! " 

"  You,  Monsieur  Thiers,"  I  exclaimed,  deeply  affected, 
"-you  quit  the  country  when  she  is  in  such  need  of  your 
ideas  and  your  experience  ? " 

"  It  is  only  to  put  them,  my  dear  friend,  to  the  serv- 
ice of  the  country  that  I  quit  her,  —  that  I  make  my- 
self a  colporteur  of  diplomacy  throughout  Europe,  — 
the  political  Wandering  Jew  of  our  unhappy  France, 
in  the  hope  of  restoring  to  her,  in  the  name  of  her 
glorious  past,  the  prestige  that  her  piteous  present  is 
causing  her  to  lose.  Ah !  I  expect  misunderstandings, 
disappointments,  in  foreign  lands !  But  I  will  take  my 
share  of  punishment  \  Son  of  the  Revolution,  I  too  am 
devoured  by  that  mother-in-law !  Ah  !  when  I  think 
that  she  is  here  still,  an  idol !  —  Don't  let  us  talk  of  it ! 
I  go  to  save  France  in  Europe;  for  that  end  I  am 
determined  to  scour  the  world  !  It  is  hard,  hard,  at  my 
age,  and  to  my  patriotism !  But  what  else  can  I  do  } 
I  have  confidence  in  no  one  but  myself.  Men  shall 
see  if  my  patriotism,  my  long  experience,  are  right  or 
wrong  against  the  illusions  of  those  lunatics  —  luna- 


MONSIEUR  CLAUDE  313 

tics  who  think  it  suffices,  in  presence  of  a  million  of 
Prussians,  to  get  drunk  on  the  traditions  of  the  First 
Republic,  just  as  Louis  Napoleon  got  drunk  on  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  First  Empire.  And  now,  my  dear  Claude, 
here  is  what  I  want  of  you,  of  your  patriotism,  during 
my  absence." 

Here  I  pricked  up  my  ears.  I  knew  that  M.  Thiers 
was  full  of  self,  but  never  did  I  suppose  he  would  push 
the  love  of  self  to  the  point  of  fighting  all  that  did 
not  emanate  from  his  system  or  his  authority.  And  yet 
I  admired  the  patriotism  of  the  little  man,  whose  lucid 
mind  was  as  vigorous  as  at  thirty  years  of  age.  I 
waited  with  lively  curiosity  to  know  what  he  was  going 
to  ask  of  me,  determined  to  do  whatever  would  help  his 
diplomatic  programme.  I  merely  nodded  my  head,  with- 
out interrupting  him,  and  he  went  on,  evidently  pleased 
that  I  had  not  done  so. 

"  While  I  am  away  from  France,"  he  said,  "  I  shall 
need  to  know  everything  that  is  done  here.  Can  I 
count  upon  you  ? " 

"  Yes,  Monsieur  Thiers,  except  for  personal  denun- 
ciations." 

"  It  concerns  France  —  France  to  be  saved,  and 
nothing  else,"  he  cried,  impatiently. 

"  In  that  case,"  I  hastened  to  say,  "  I  am  your  man." 

"  I  knew  it ! "  he  cried  in  a  softened  tone.  "  You  are, 
like  myself,  an  honest  man,  and  a  good  Frenchman. 
Well,  au  revoir,  my  dear  Claude.  I  shall  count  on  your 
daily  notes  concerning  the  blunders  our  new  masters 
will  commit — daily  notes, mind  you;  that's  agreed." 


314  MONSIEUR  CLAUDE 

"Yes;  if  agreed,"  I  replied,  "that  I  do  not  put  names 
in  those  notes." 

"  You  will  do  as  you  choose,"  he  said,  with  a  sly 
smile;  "if  I  find  names  to  put  to  your  daily  revela- 
tions, so  much  the  worse  for  you." 

"That  is  your  affair  —  as  a  diplomatist,"  I  returned, 
smiling  in  the  same  way. 

"  You  will  cause  me  a  great  deal  more  work;  I,  who 
already  have  too  much,  through  the  fault  of  others. 
And  I  must  owe  this  increase  of  labour  to  your  scruples 
as  an  honest  man!  Good  God!  how  inconvenient 
honest  men  are ! " 

He  bowed  to  me,  and  I  took  leave  of  M.  Thiers, 
who,  from  that  day  forth,  knew  from  me  all  that  hap- 
pened in  a  government  which  he  had  made,  and  in 
which  he  had  no  part.  My  notes  must  have  served  him 
later  to  repair  the  faults  of  the  Government  of  Septem- 
ber 4,  which,  in  the  name  of  the  Republic,  had  the  same 
thwarting  weakness  as  M.  Thiers  himself — the  love  of 
dictatorship. 

Events  proved  it.  While  changing  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment, the  men  of  September  4  employed  the  same 
system  as  the  old  government.  The  men  of  the  Em- 
pire were  worth  as  much  as  the  men  of  the  Republic  — 
with  more  patriotism  in  their  proclamations. 

A  revolution  does  not  change  the  temperament  of 
a  people ;  and  the  French  people  like,  above  all  things, 
to  feed  on  illusions ! 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adelaide,  Princess,  death  of,  48. 

Albano,  Marquis,  155-159. 

AUard,  Monsieur,  18,  19. 

Allsop,  Thomas,  English  Socialist,  im- 
plicated in  the  Orsini  bomb  explo- 
sion, 115,  116. 

Artists'  Association,  founded  by  Baron 
Taylor,  30. 

Autographs  of  famous  people,  forgeries 
of,  168,  170,  171. 

Athalin,  General,  19,  20. 

B ,  Princesse  de,  95,  96. 

Bacciochi,  80,  122. 

Bakounine,  114,  115;  his  opinion  of 
Mazzini,  117. 

Barrot,  Odilon,  27,  53. 

Baune,  Citizen,  52. 

Bazaine,  Marshal,  in  command  at  Metz, 
279. 

Baze,  Monsieur,  73,  76. 

Begand,  Monsieur,  4. 

Beauregard,  Comtesse  de,  title  confer- 
red by  Napoleon  III  on  Miss  How- 
ard, 149. 

Beranger,  124, 125, 127, 128,  129;  efforts 
of  "  Internationalists  "  to  create  dis- 
turbance at  funeral  of,  thwarted  by 
ruse  of  M.  Claude,  132. 

Bernard,  Simon,  French  refugee,  ac- 
complice of  Orsini  in  attempted  as- 
sassination of  Napoleon  III,  1 15, 1 16. 

Berryer,  77,  137. 

Billault,  Monsieur,  Minister  of  the  In- 
terior, under  Napoleon  III,  108 ;  dis- 
missed after  Orsini  plot,  121. 

Bismarck,  133,  134,  262,  269. 

Blanqui,  17. 


Boissy,  Marquis  de,  104. 

Boitelle,  Monsieur,  succeeds  Pietri  as 
Prefect  of  Police,  121. 

Bonaparte  family,  plot  of,  against  Louis- 
Fhllippe,  19-22. 

Bonaparte,  Prince  Louis  Napoleon,  mili- 
tary plot  of,  19,  20;  imprisoned,  39; 
elected  President  of  Second  French 
Republic  in  1848,  64;  conspired 
against  the  Republic  up  to  the  time 
of  the  Coup  d^Etat,  64 ;  as  Napoleon 
III  established  Second  Empire,  79; 
attempted  assassination  of ,  108-110; 
decides  on  war  with  Prussia,  262 ; 
leaves  Paris  for  the  front,  264 ;  after 
defeat  at  Forbach  retreats  to  Metz, 
276;  defeated  and  captured  at  Sedan, 
290 ;  end  of  the  Second  Empire,  293- 

295- 

Bonaparte,  Prince  Pierre,  210;  impris- 
oned for  murder  of  Victor  Noir,  242 ; 
story  of  incidents  leading  up  to  affair, 
246-249. 

Brea,  General,  assassination  of,  64. 

Broglie,  Due  de,  77. 

Brunswick,  Duke  of,  173-183. 

C ,  Prince  de,  suicide  of,  90-92. 

Cabinet  Noir,  suppressed  in  1830,  re- 
established, II. 

Carbonari,  3,  114;  Orsini  and,  115. 

Caussidi^re,  Prefect  of  Police  under  the 
Second  Republic,  54. 

Cavaignac,  General,  64,  73. 

Cavour,  and  Napoleon  III,  118. 

Chambre  Noire,  installed  by  Napoleon 
III  at  Tuileries,8o ;  the  secret  police 
and,  81. 


3i8 


INDEX 


Changarnier,  General,  73. 

Charassin,  Citizen,  52. 

Charles  X,  3,  11,  28. 

Charras,  Colonel,  73. 

Chasles,  Michel,  170. 

Choiseul-Praslin,  Due  de,  crime  of, 
chief  element  in  precipitating  the 
revolution  of  1848,  49-52 ;  commits 
suicide,  15. 

Choiseul-Praslin,  Duchesse  de,  murder 
of,  by  husband,  50,  51. 

Claude,  Monsieur,  birth,  i  ;  comes  to 
Paris  at  age  of  19,  i  ;  recommended  to 

M.  de  L ,  I ;  clerk  to  an  attorney, 

2 ;  becomes  policeman  by  chance, 
3,  9 ;  deputy  clerk  of  the  Court  of  the 
Seine  in  1830,  10;  becomes  secre- 
tary of  provisional  government  in 
July,  1830,  25,  26;  under  Lxjuis- 
Philippe  resumes  duties  as  court 
clerk,  31 ;  meets  Louis  Napoleon  at 
famous  Cabaret  du  Lapin  Blanc  in 
an  exciting  adventure,  32-37;  be- 
comes commissary  of  police,  44,  45 ; 
dismissed  from  office  as  commissary 
of  police  in  1848,  54;  secretary  to 
Monsieur  de  L after  revolution  of 

.  1848,  59 ;  again  commissary  of  police 
under  Napoleon  before  the  Coup  cT 
Etat,  62  ;  remarkable  interview  with 
Monsieur  Thiers,  69-73 ;  reflections 
by,  on  the  Coup  d'Etat,  76,  77 ;  or- 
dered to  disperse  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties at  time  of  Coup  d'Etat,  85 ;  un- 
wittingly protects  the  good  name  of 
Mile,  de  Montijo,  89-99  ;  warned  by 

Madame  X of  the  Orsini  plot 

against  the  life  of  Napoleon  III, 
103-107;  causes  the  prompt  arrest, 
after  explosion  of  Orsini  bombs,  of 
principal  conspirators,  1 13, 1 14 ;  made 
Chief  of  Police  under  Napoleon 
III,  122;  cleverly  outwitted  by 
swindler,  126,  127 ;  pays  visit  to 
Beranger,  1 28, 1 29 ;  prevents  demon- 
stration of  "  Internationalists  "  at  fun- 
eral of  Beranger,  132;  unsuccessful 


attempt  of,  to  capture  Jud,  murderer 
of  M.  Poinsot,  140-145;  mysterious 
connection  of  Prussian  officers  with 
affair,  144,  145 ;  report  on  Jud  affair 
suppressed,  146;  has  a  second  inter- 
view with  M.  Thiers,  186, 187  ;  arrests 
Tropmann  for  Kinck  murders,  217; 
is  sent  to  Metz  in  charge  of  Emper- 
or's baggage -train,  264;  saves  the 
Emperor's  baggage  after  retreat 
from  Forbach,  271-275;  is  com- 
plimented by  the  Emperor  for  his 
bravery,  276,  277 ;  returns  to  Paris, 
279  ;  left  alone  in  the  Prefecture  of 
Police  after  the  fall  of  the  Second 
Empire,  291  ;  confers  with  Monsieur 
Thiers,  293,  294. 

Closerie  des  Ltlas,  126,  127. 

Commerson,  establishes  newspaper 
Tintamarre,  201-203. 

Constant,  Benjamin,  3,  7. 

Coquerel,  77. 

Comemuse,  General,  151;  killed  in  duel, 

151- 

Coup  d'Etat,  the,  62-78;  engineered 
by  the  same  men  who  destroyed  the 
government  of  Louis -Philippe,  62 ; 
incidents  of,  described,  65,  66. 

Da  Silva,  Portuguese  accomplice  in 
Orsini's  attempt  on  life  of  Napo- 
leon III,  113;  real  name,  Rudio, 
115. 

David,  Felicien,  66. 

D'Argoult,  27. 

D'Azy,  B^noist,  86. 

Delavigne,   Casimir,  27. 

Delessert,  Monsieur,  Prefect  of  Police 
under  Louis-Philippe,  55. 

De  Tocqueville,  77. 

Dumas,  Alexandre, /^r^,  192,  193. 

Dupin,  Baron,  27;  President  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  85. 

VEcureuil  ["  the  Squirrel "],  153,  154. 

Espinasse,  General,  67,  121. 

Eugenie,  Empress,  100,  loi,  n.\  com- 


INDEX 


319 


'    pelled  to  flee  from  the  Tuileries,  304, 

305. 
I'Eure,  Dupont  de,  3. 

Favre,  Jules,  52,  136, 137, 139;  counsel 
for  Orsini,  1 20 ;  proclaims  the  fall  of 
the  Second  Empire  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  295. 

Fonvielle,  Ulrich  de,  243-245. 

Forey,  General,  86. 

Gambetta,  298,  310. 

Gambling,  under  the  Second  Empire, 
153 ;  gambling  clubs  established,  154. 

Gomez,  accomplice  of  Orsini  in  at- 
tempted assassination  of  Napoleon 
III,  115. 

Government  of  September  4,  1870,  or- 
ganized, 299 ;  National  Guard  called 
out,  299. 

Gringoire,  Bishop,  14. 

Grousset,  Paschal,  244. 

Gu^roult,  Adolphe,  196. 

Guizot,  27,  53. 

Haute  P^gre,  162-164. 

Hebert,  Monsieur,  arrests  Fieri,  accom- 
plice of  Orsini,  immediately  before 
bomb  explosion,  112,  113. 

Howard,  Miss,  English  mistress  of 
Prince  Louis  Napoleon,  65  ;  abduc- 
tion and  end  of,  148,  149;  son  of,  by 
Louis  Napoleon,  died  in  September, 
1907,  149  n. 

Hyrvoix,  80,  122. 

Indicateurs,  secret  police  agents  under 

Second  Empire,  82. 
Irving,  Washington,  loi  «. 

Journalism  under  the  Second  Empire, 
195-209. 

Jud,  assassin  of  M.  Poinsot,  134;  mys- 
tery in  connection  with,  140. 

July  Monarchy,  22,  23. 

Kdratry,  Comte  de,  appointed  Prefect 


of  Police  by  the  Government  of  Sep- 
tember 4,  297. 

L ,  Monsieur  de,  Bonapartist  con- 
spirator, 23,  24 ;  companion  of  Prince 
Louis  Napoleon  in  Paris  slums,  37, 
38 ;  advises  M.  Claude  to  become  a 
Bonapartist,  57 ;  senator  under  Sec- 
ond Empire,  79. 

Lacenaire,  George,  dinner  at  the  Veau 
qui  t^te,  4  ;  poses  as  an  ultra-radical, 
7,8;  arrested  for  theft,  9. 

Lafarge,  Madame,  51,  60,  61. 

Lafayette,  General,  4,  40,  41. 

Lagrange,  Charles,  52, 81, 122, 124, 196. 

La  Hode,  Lucien  de,  secret  agent  of 
the  police,  53. 

Lamartine,  53. 

Lamoriciere,  General,  73,  77. 

Lanot,  Commissary  of  Police,  1 1 1. 

Lapin  Blanc,  Cabaret  du,  adventure  of 
M.  Claude  in,  32-36  ;  resort  for  the 
Haute  Pegre,  34. 

Lasteyrie,  Jules  de,  77. 

Ledru-Rollin,  17,  53,  63,  64,  124. 

Le  Flo,  General,  73,  74,  77. 

Loban,  General,  14. 

Louis-Philippe,  Citizen-King,  10;  plot 
of  Bonapartists  against,  19-22 ;  fall 
of  kingdom  of,  partly  result  of  re- 
volting crime  of  Due  de  Choiseul- 
Praslin,  46,  49-52. 

Louis  XIV,  142,  143. 

Lucas,  Vrain,  1 70. 

Luynes,  Due  de,  77. 

Magnan,  General,  66. 

Marrast,  Armand,  editor  of  Le  National^ 
52. 

Marx,  Karl,  114. 

Maupas,  Monsieur  de,  Prefect  of  Police 
under  Louis  Napoleon,  66;  active 
participant  in  Coup  d^Etat,  66,  67. 

Mazzini,  106,  107,  109;  not  implicated 
in  any  way  in  Orsini's  attempt  on  life 
of  Napoleon  III,  116,  117;  quarrels 
with  Orsini,  118. 


320 


INDEX 


Mazzinienne,  la,  83,  84 ;  friend  of  Or- 
sini,  84. 

Mires,  Monsieur,  87. 

Mocquart,  confidant  of  Louis  Napoleon 
and  Miss  Howard,  148,  149. 

Montalivet,  Louis-Philippe's  Minister 
of  the  Interior,  12;  offers  cross  of 
the  Legion  of  Honour  to  Raspail, 
12, 

Montijo,  Madame  de,  90;  her  efforts 
to  corrupt  M.  Claude,  91,  93;  her 
stormy  scene  with  the  Princesse  de 
B ,  96. 

Momy,  Due  de,  23 ;  one  of  the  conspir- 
ators of  the  Coup  d^Etaty  66. 

Nadaud,  Citizen,  86,  87. 

Napoleon  I,  23,  143. 

Napoleon  II,  20,  21,  39,  42. 

Napoleon  III  (see  Bonaparte,  Louis 
Napoleon). 

Nina-Fleurette,  mistress  of  Louis  Na- 
poleon, 36,  37. 

Newspapers  under  Second  Empire, 
195-205. 

Noir,  Victor,  killed  by  Prince  Pierre 
Bonaparte,  245;  exciting  scenes  at 
funeral  of,  254,  255. 

Ollivier,  Emile,  206,  207. 

Orfila,  Monsieur,  toxicologist,  51,  59, 

60 ;  death  of,  61. 
Orsini,  Felice,  84  «.;  plot  of,  to  murder 

the  Emperor,  103-121 ;  explosion  of 

bombs  by,  at  the  Opera  House,  108- 

112;  execution  of,  121. 
Oudinot,  General,  77,  86. 

Pelissier,  Marshal,  121. 

Percy  (Pieri),  Joseph  Andre,  an  accom- 
plice of  Orsini  in  the  attempted  as- 
sassination of  Napoleon  III,  106, 
107;  executed,  121. 

Perier,  Casimir,  President  of  the  Coun- 
cil of  Ministers  under  Louis-Philippe, 
II,  13,  14;  active  in  frustrating  plots 
against  Government  of  Louis-Phil- 


ippe, 19;  exposes  Bonapartist  plot, 
21,  22. 

Pietri,  Monsieur,  Prefect  of  Police  un- 
der Napoleon  III,  108;  dismissed 
after  Orsini  conspiracy,  121. 

Poinsot,  Monsieur,  Judge  of  Imperial 
Court,  assassination  of,  134;  myste- 
rious comment  of  Jules  Favre  on 
death  of,  137. 

Police,  the,  under  the  Second  Empire, 
79-88 ;  perfect  spy  system  inaugu- 
rated, 80 ;  ramifications  of,  in  French 
society,  80;  Corsicans  play  leading 
part  in,  81,  121,  122. 

Prussia,  plotting  to  regain  Alsace  after 
1866,  269. 

Prussienne,  la,  83,  84. 

Raspail,  Fran9ois  Vincent,  President 
of  the  Society  of  the  Amis  dti  Peuple, 
1 1 ;  declines  cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honour,  13  ;  arraigned  for  seditious 
articles  in  Tribune,  15,  16;  extract 
from  letter  written  while  in  prison, 
41,  42. 

Ristori,  Madame,  109. 

Rochefort,  Henri,  director  of  the  Fi- 
garo, 198;  estabUshes  the  Lanterne, 
205. 

Roguet,  General,  no,  in;  seriously 
wounded  in  Orsini  bomb  explosion, 
III,  112. 

Royer,  Alphonse,  1 1 2. 

Rudio,  under  name  of  Da  Silva,  ac- 
complice of  Orsini  in  attempted  as- 
sassination of  Napoleon  III,  115. 

Saint-Amaud,  Minister  of  War  under 
Louis  Napoleon,  66;  active  partici- 
pant in  Coup  d'Etat,  77  ;  fights  duel 
with  General  Comemuse,  151;  sent 
to  Crimea,  152;  death  of,  152. 

Sainte-Beuve,  77. 

Saint-Leu,  Duchesse  de,  mother  of 
Louis  Bonaparte,  20;  visits  Louis- 
Philippe,  20 ;  plot  of,  discovered,  2 1 ; 
exiled,  22. 


INDEX 


321 


Samson,  the  great  comedian,  29. 
Sand,  George,  fraudulent  portrait  of, 

169. 
Sardou,  protects   the   Tuileries    after 

the  fall  of  the  Second  Empire,  303, 

304- 

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha,  Duke  of,  108. 

Sebastiani,  General,  Minister  of  For- 
eign Affairs  under  Louis -Philippe, 
II. 

Shaw,  valet  of  the  Duke  of  Brunswick, 
176;  robs  the  Duke  of  two  millions 
in  diamonds,  178,  179;  trial  of,  181, 
182. 

Sociiti  des  Droits  de  V Homme,  52. 

Societies,  secret,  and  the  police  under 
Louis-Philippe,  10-30 ;  under  Napo- 
leon III,  80. 

Swiney,  assumed  name  of  Gomez,  ac- 
complice of  Orsini  in  attempted 
assassination  of  Napoleon  III,  113. 

Talleyrand,  Prince,  17,  24,  25,  26. 

Taylor,  Baron,  27,  28  ;  founder  of  artis- 
tic associations  in  Paris,  29, 30. 

Thiers,  Monsieur,  23,  24 ;  and  the  pro- 
visional government  in  1830,  25,  26; 
advises  M.  Claude  in  crisis  of  Coup 
d^Etaty  69-73 ;  imprisoned,  74,  76, 
87  ;  elected  to  the  Chamber  of  Depu- 
ties in  1863,  186;  plots  against  the 
Second  Empire,  187,  188;  fails  to 
control  Government  of  September 
4,  1870,  310,  314. 


Thomas,  Clement,  drills  members  of 
the  Sociiti  des  Droits  de  r Homme, 
52. 

Thomas,  Emile,  abduction  of,  63,  64. 

Ticknor,  George,.  100  n. 

Trochu,  General,  269,  270,  287,  299. 

Tropmann,  210;  incidents  of  murders 
of  Eanck  family  by,  and  arrest  of, 
described,  211-236;  trial  of,  for  mur- 
der of  Kinck  family,  237-240 ;  con- 
demned to  death  and  executed,  240 ; 
connects  Prussian  influence  with  his 
crime,  240. 

Vaez,  Gustave,  112. 

Veau  qui  tHe,  4. 

Ventriloque,  le  ["  the  Ventriloquist  "], 

153, 154 ;  exposure  by,  of  "  crooked  " 

gambling  games,  157. 
Victor  Emmanuel,  King  of  Italy,  118, 

119,  120,  133. 
Vidocq,  Monsieur,  18,  166. 
Villemessant,  198,  200 ;  establishes  the 

Figaro,  202. 

X ,  Madame,  spy  of  Prince  Louis 

Bonaparte,  58  n. ;  warns  Monsieur 
Claude  of  the  plots  of  Orsini  against 
Napoleon  III,  103-106;  report  by, 
on  affair  resulting  in  killing  of  Victor 
Noh:  by  Prince  Pierre  Bonaparte, 
251-253;  predicts  return  of  Bona- 
partists  after  fall  of  Second  Empire, 
289,  290. 


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